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As of right now (March 2024) there are quite a few sources saying that there is starvation on a large scale within the Gaza strip. Example, example.

Considering that Hamas' fighters are also within Gaza, does this suggest that their fighters are also starving?

I can't find any sources about this - everything I've found have focused on starvation of non-combatants.

the gods from engineering
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Allure
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    Not my DV, but how are we going to get good sources about this? Hamas is probably not going to be forthcoming with this info. And if they come out of the tunnels for whatever reasons (including looking for food) and get killed, it's not going to count as death from starvation. Incidents like this show that the IDF isn't incredibly discriminating with those emerging from tunnels. – the gods from engineering Mar 14 '24 at 05:51
  • @Dolphin613Motorboat then VTC as unverifiable to public. – Allure Mar 14 '24 at 05:52
  • Maybe there are some sources, IDK, just pointing out that unlike interviews with (say) Ukrainian soldiers that flood YouTube, you ain't going to see many with Hamas fighters. If you speak Arabic, and read the right Telegram channels, it might be different, IDK. – the gods from engineering Mar 14 '24 at 05:55
  • @Dolphin613Motorboat then don't VTC and hope someone who can read Arabic can confirm. I can't tell what kind of response from me you're hoping for. – Allure Mar 14 '24 at 06:00
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    Relevant question, and while the answer is not going to be available in real-time, in a year it probably will be. And the question would still be here. So personally not convinced it's appropriate to close on those grounds. – Pete W Mar 14 '24 at 14:06

2 Answers2

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Considering that Hamas' fighters are also within Gaza, does this suggest that their fighters are also starving?

Unlikely.

For starters, one of the reasons for scarcity of food in Gaza is because Hamas pillaged some of the aid that did get there.

But, also, and more importantly, because they've been preparing for this war. They have major stockpiles of supplies hidden in the vast underground tunnels system they've built underneath the whole strip.

littleadv
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  • Edit suggestion:"For starters, one of the reasons for scarcity of food in Gaza is because Hamas pillaged some of the aid that did get there." Obviously the following changes can reflect the real situation. "For starters, despite Israel's extremely strict security assessment, there are still a dozen or dozens of supply trucks carrying supplies that can meet the survival needs of hundreds of thousands of people every day to ensure the survival of millions of people." – Jack_here Mar 14 '24 at 06:48
  • Related link. – Jack_here Mar 14 '24 at 06:49
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    @Jack_here my goal is not to further pro-Palestinian propaganda, but to answer the question. Whether there's enough food without Hamas pillaging what's coming may be a separate question, but this one asks whether Hamas is hungry. – littleadv Mar 14 '24 at 06:56
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    FDD is not an incredibly reputable source for claims like this https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/56287/did-someone-in-turkey-ship-16-tons-of-explosive-materials-to-hamas-disguise – the gods from engineering Mar 14 '24 at 07:27
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    Well, they do cite their sources – littleadv Mar 14 '24 at 07:30
  • "Well, they do cite their sources": So does RT, TASS, the Greyzone, al-Jazeera, etc. – the gods from engineering Mar 14 '24 at 09:11
  • BTW, the NYT piece (which is from the end of Oct), said (based on some unnamed "senior Lebanese official") that Hamas had stockpiles for 3-4 months. So, they should be running out. I guess that's why no big cache of underground food was found by the IDF thus far. OTOH, it's quite possible that the tunnels are distributed enough that there is no big pile anywhere, just lots of small piles like in the screengrabs from my answer. – the gods from engineering Mar 14 '24 at 13:32
  • @Dolphin613Motorboat a single large cache would defeat the purpose of the distributed force in the tunnels, of course – littleadv Mar 14 '24 at 15:57
  • You mean the underground tunnels that Israel built when it previously had control of the strip, right? – Reasonably Against Genocide Mar 16 '24 at 02:32
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FWTW, some Israeli hostages released say that they had received less food toward the end of their captivity. E.g.:

They were not physically harmed and often ate pitta and cheese with their captors until food became scarce.

Or

While in captivity, she said the family survived on little water and food each day. “They tried to provide us with food. There was more in the beginning, but there was less later,” she said.

It's unclear though whether Hamas did this because they knew those persons were going to be released or they just didn't have enough to share. So, it's circumstantial evidence, like with much else in this matter.

Speaking of tunnels, the IDF did release some footage showing Hamas keeping some food and especially cash in some 'tunnels', or better said in the larger underground rooms thereof.

enter image description here enter image description here

With cash they can certainly buy food on flourishing Gaza black market.

Every day, Yasser Bashir, another displaced person who is sheltering in a UNRWA school in the city of Khan Yunis, waits for more than two hours in a long line to receive his share of daily food aid, but every time he receives "a small amount of food that is not enough for just one person."

"They (UN organisations) deliberately humiliate us, and we do not get enough food or even water. In return, we are forced to buy it from the black market," the 54-year-old father of eight remarked to TNA.

But it's not clear to me if most Hamas units have loads of cash on hand, like in that instance. Netanyahu has recently claimed that Hamas mainly gets their food "at gunpoint", or at least that that's the main reason why there's not enough food getting to the average Gazans--which Netanyahu also says he doesn't have enough information on (i.e. that a food crisis is happening).

Hunger and malnutrition are widespread in the Gaza Strip. The United Nations warns that famine is imminent [...]. Responding to these claims, Netanyahu said: “We don’t have that kind of information. That’s not the information we have. And we monitor it closely.” [...]

Asked why more aid isn’t reaching Gaza by land, Netanyahu said: “Hamas is coming at gunpoint and stealing the food.

For what's worth it, (former PM) Naftali Bennett went further and claimed not only that Hamas is stealing loads of food, but that they are [stealing so much that they have enough] to be selling it back to the black market at 10x markup, i.e. that Hamas has cornered the food market!

And (I guess) to prevent that from happening, Israel has been bombing some UN food distribution centers, at least while there's a Hamas guy inside.

Israel said on Wednesday its airstrike on a U.N. food distribution centre in southern Gaza killed a Hamas commander whom it targeted, and Palestinian health officials said it killed four more people including a U.N. worker.

The Israeli military said the strike killed Mohammad Abu Hasna, whom it described as a Hamas militant who provided intelligence to the group on Israeli troops' positions and was "also involved in taking control of humanitarian aid and distributing it to Hamas terrorists." [...]

At least one UNRWA staff member was among the five killed and 22 others were injured, the agency said, adding that the facility's coordinates had been shared with the Israeli military.

Now, truth to be told, they hit him in the courtyard, from what I can tell form the video, and only 5 people or so can be seen in the IDF footage. A spokesperson for the Israeli government used the opportunity to remind that "UNRWA is a Hamas front that's running interference for Hamas abusing its UN logo".

the gods from engineering
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  • These quotes moved me. I don't know how to explain what exactly Hamas wants. – Jack_here Mar 14 '24 at 09:10
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    BTW, the IDF also claims they've already "reached most of" Hamas' "strategic compounds underground". Although it's somewhat unclear to me what they mean by that, I'm guessing it refers to compounds like those depicted in that video... because AFACIT they've not showcased anything more impressively looking than that. – the gods from engineering Mar 14 '24 at 13:42
  • There's more footage of some other Hamas underground compounds, but not much food (or cash) was shown in those https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34CxzZtVxnE ; https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2024/01/11/idf-embed-tunnels-khan-younis-israel-hamas-robertson-ebof-vpx.cnn ; https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/07/middleeast/gaza-underground-compound-israel-hamas-intl-cmd/index.html The last one probably had some as there's a half-empty juice bottle seen. – the gods from engineering Mar 14 '24 at 14:00
  • Somewhat more interestingly, they also showed an underground weapons manufacturing facility https://youtu.be/Rx7IARoX9Fg?t=162 The actual storage of the rockets was above ground though. – the gods from engineering Mar 14 '24 at 14:09
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    Why are UN claims "clearly exaggerated"? The video seems quite consistent with UN claims, especially considering that a UN staff member at the site reports that it was struck by two missiles and the video appears to only show one strike. – Charlie Evans Mar 14 '24 at 14:44
  • @CharlieEvans: the FDD called it a "surgical removal". – the gods from engineering Mar 14 '24 at 14:56
  • @Dolphin613Motorboat So what? – Charlie Evans Mar 14 '24 at 15:07
  • @CharlieEvans So, where's your evidence anyone else was killed or wounded? Israel's government spokesperson Eylon Levy said that UNRWA is a "Hamas front that's running interference for Hamas" anyway, so that implies it can't trusted with anything they say, anymore than Hamas. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuHHNk4y8E0 – the gods from engineering Mar 14 '24 at 15:28
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    @Dolphin613Motorboat I don't need to provide any evidence, you are the one making a claim viz. that UN claims are exaggerated. I'm pointing out that the evidence you have presented doesn't support that claim. Why can anything that the Israeli government says be trusted? – Charlie Evans Mar 14 '24 at 15:38
  • @CharlieEvans: Why can anything that UN[RWA] says be trusted either? See, we're in that territory on this conflict. There are no neutrals: you're either with us, or you're antisemitic. – the gods from engineering Mar 14 '24 at 15:49
  • @Dolphin613Motorboat I don't claim that UN statements can be trusted, just that you haven't provided evidence that they exaggerated. – Charlie Evans Mar 14 '24 at 16:44
  • @CharlieEvans well... Truth be told the OP did provide a video evidence, whereas you're relying on a written statement without any additional information (not even the names to corroborate there actually were any casualties). – littleadv Mar 14 '24 at 17:41
  • @littleadv As I said above, the video is consistent with the UN claim, so it isn't evidence that the claim is wrong. – Charlie Evans Mar 14 '24 at 18:35
  • @CharlieEvans the video is also consistent with the OP's claim, it just depends on your interpretation. The OP says "it doesn't show what the UN claimed", and you're saying "But it doesn't contradict it either". But if the UN claim is false - you're asking to prove a negative, which is hard, if not impossible. – littleadv Mar 14 '24 at 18:39
  • @littleadv This is simply not how proof and evidence works. OP made a claim, that the UN statement is "clearly exaggerated" (which they have now retracted, incidentally) and then provided a video as evidence, but the video didn't support their claim. – Charlie Evans Mar 14 '24 at 20:05
  • @CharlieEvans I would support that claim by the fact that no confirmation for the UN claim is independently available. There are no names, no pictures, no substantiation by evidence. The counter claim is that it never happened, which does have some video evidence. While you could may be bully the OP, you're in the wrong. The burden of proof is on you. – littleadv Mar 14 '24 at 20:21
  • @littleadv Multiple agencies have publisehd photos of blood spatter in the UNRWA compound, indicating that more than one person was seriously injured in the strikes. Staff of international media groups also claim to have seen victims of the strikes. This is all evidence for the UN claim, but it is irrelevant, because as I keep saying the burden of proof is on the OP if they are the one making the claim, whatever you mistakenly believe. – Charlie Evans Mar 14 '24 at 22:19
  • @CharlieEvans blood spatter? Why not bodies? Why not identification? You realize how ridiculous you sound, don't you? You demand to prove a negative, it's impossible. You claim something happened - show it. Name the victims, show their pictures. – littleadv Mar 14 '24 at 22:26
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    @littleadv Presumably because victims were moved to hospital in the hope they could be saved. In any case, I'm not making a claim about what happened, despite your continual misapprehension. It is the UN that is making a claim, which OP described as "clearly exaggerated". What I contested was the evidence they were using to dispute the UN's claim. It is entirely possible to prove a negative, incidentally. – Charlie Evans Mar 14 '24 at 23:51