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You Can’t Undo a Libel: American Doctors Quietly Retract ‘60,000 Dead From Starvation’ Gaza Lie
An UNRWA aid truck at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. Photo: Reuters/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
The Gaza death toll is “already greater than 118,908, an astonishing 5.4% of Gaza’s population,” and “everyone in Gaza is sick, injured, or both — including every national aid worker, every international volunteer, and probably every Israeli hostage.”
These are just a few of the wildly exaggerated and demonstrably false claims made in an open letter signed by 99 American physicians, surgeons, and nurses who purport to have volunteered in Gaza since the Hamas massacre last year.
Curiously, the authors felt the need to add a caveat when discussing Israeli hostages — “probably sick.” Apparently, while they are absolutely certain that every one of Gaza’s two million residents is on death’s door, the hostages who have been starved, tortured, and held underground for a year — well, they probably are not doing well.
If one needed a clue as to how flimsy the claims in this letter are, you need only revisit an earlier version of the same letter published in July by many of the same signees.
In that original letter, these trustworthy medical professionals warned that more than 60,000 people had died of starvation in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023.
Claiming that Israel instituted a “deliberate policy” of starving Gaza that was supposedly “not in dispute,” the signees cited a report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) as their evidence.
Yet, the IPC had already revised its earlier warning, finding no evidence of famine in Gaza. Naturally, it’s the earlier warning — the one the IPC itself said was wrong — that the authors chose to cite.
But in the latest version of the letter, the 60,000 dead from starvation have apparently vanished.
Instead, we now have vague claims of “widespread malnutrition.”
The sources these medical professionals use in both letters to conjure up their wild figures are easy to debunk.
For example, they cite The Lancet as an authority, touting it as the “most prestigious medical and public health journal in the world.” They conveniently omit that the staggering figure of 186,000 deaths they reference didn’t come from peer-reviewed data or even a study — it was lifted from an opinion piece published in The Lancet’s “correspondence” section. Hardly the rigorous science you’d expect from such a distinguished source.
In addition to the use of wildly inaccurate figures pulled from wholly dubious sources, the letter is sprinkled with a generous dose of modern-day blood libels, such as the vile lie that Israel is deliberately targeting women and children, describing the “unbearable cruelty” inflicted on them, with women “shredded by [American] bombs” and children “murdered.”
It’s the attached appendix, however, that truly reveals the absurdity of these missives — it’s a mishmash of outdated reports from groups like Save the Children and Human Rights Watch, littered with contradictory statistics and cherry-picked quotes from US politicians.
In the latest letter, we’re told at least 118,000 people have died in Gaza since October 7 — yet this is the exact same figure given in the previous letter months ago. And then they admitted it was “impossible to accurately estimate how many Palestinians in Gaza have died since October 7.”
Meanwhile, one of the signatories, Ali Elaydi, has been making the rounds in the media this week, most recently in an interview with ABC News, where he falsely claimed that Israel is restricting medical supplies from entering Gaza.
In reality, Israel has explicitly stated that it places no such restrictions on medical aid.
The allegation, which originated at the UN, appears to be an attempt to deflect from the UN’s own failures in effectively distributing aid throughout the Strip.
And then there’s the irony: shortly after urging President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to “withhold military, economic, and diplomatic support from the State of Israel … until good faith negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians lead to a permanent resolution of the conflict,” the signees admit they don’t “claim to have all the answers” because, well, they’re “simply physicians and nurses.”
The sheer arrogance is breathtaking — demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza while simultaneously insisting the conflict continues solely because of US weapons support, and in the next breath confessing they have no idea how to resolve the conflict.
But still, Biden and Harris must “end this madness now!”
One wonders how many of these signatories have lent their names to letters demanding an end to the “madness” of the endless rocket and terror attacks on Israeli civilians — attacks that both preceded October 7 and have continued ever since.
As sure as night follows day, gullible journalists will inevitably reference this inflated and erroneous death toll in future articles.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post You Can’t Undo a Libel: American Doctors Quietly Retract ‘60,000 Dead From Starvation’ Gaza Lie first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Trump, Harris Tied 47%-47% in Final CNN Poll
Republican presidential nominee and former US President Donald Trump points towards Democratic presidential nominee and US Vice President Kamala Harris, during a presidential debate hosted by ABC in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US, Sept. 10, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Kamala Harris are tied at 47% each among likely voters, according to CNN’s last nationwide poll before the Nov. 5 election.
The poll, conducted by telephone Oct. 20-23 among 1,704 registered voters and released on Friday, had a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points among likely voters and plus or minus 3.2 percentage points among the full sample of registered voters.
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2 Dead, Several Seriously Wounded After Hezbollah Rocket Hits Arab Israeli Town
The attack’s victims. Photo: i24 News
i24 News – Two Arab Israelis were killed by rocket shrapnel following a barrage of rockets launched by Hezbollah on the Galilee town of Majd al-Krum.
The victims were named as Hassan Suad, 21, and Arjwan Manaa, 35.
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Israel and Hezbollah Trade Fire Across Lebanon Border, Blinken Calls for Urgent Resolution
A view shows damage at a site hit by an Israeli strike that killed a few journalists and wounded several others as they slept in guesthouses used by media, Lebanon’s health ministry and local media reported, in Hasbaya in southern Lebanon, October 25, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer
An Israeli strike killed three journalists in southern Lebanon on Friday, Lebanese officials said, while Israel said Hezbollah killed two people in a strike in its north as Washington pressed for a ceasefire.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said there was an urgent need to get a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, a day after he said Washington did not want to see a protracted campaign in Lebanon by its ally Israel.
Israel launched its major offensive in Lebanon a month ago, saying it was targeting the heavily armed, Iran-backed Hezbollah group to secure the return home of tens of thousands of Israelis evacuated from the north due to cross-border rocket attacks.
Beirut authorities say Israel’s Lebanon offensive has killed more than 2,500 people and displaced more than 1.2 million, sparking a humanitarian crisis.
Friday’s strike killed two people in Majd al-Krum in northern Israel, according to Israeli media, and followed a statement from Hezbollah saying that it targeted the northern Israeli town of Karmiel with a large missile salvo.
“The world must stop Iran now – before it’s too late,” Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz said on X.
The conflict was sparked by the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel which triggered Israel’s offensive in Gaza, where Palestinian officials said Israeli strikes had killed at least 72 people since Thursday night.
The journalists killed in south Lebanon were Ghassan Najjar and Mohamed Reda of the pro-Iranian news outlet Al-Mayadeen and Wissam Qassem, who worked for Hezbollah’s Al-Manar, the outlets said in separate statements. Several others were wounded.
They had been staying at guesthouses in Hasbaya, a town not previously targeted, when it was hit around 3 a.m. (midnight GMT).
Five journalists have been killed in previous Israeli strikes while reporting on the conflict, including Reuters visual journalist Issam Abdallah on Oct. 13, 2023.
“This is a war crime,” Lebanese Information Minister Ziad Makary said. At least 18 journalists from six media outlets, including Sky News and Al-Jazeera were using the guesthouses.
“We heard the airplane flying very low – that’s what woke us up – and then we heard the two missiles,” Muhammad Farhat, a reporter with Lebanese broadcaster Al-Jadeed, said.
His footage showed overturned and damaged cars, some marked “Press.” There was no immediate comment from Israel, which in general denies deliberately attacking journalists.
The U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon said Israeli forces had fired at their troops in an observation post in southern Dhayra on Tuesday, leading them to leave the post though they remained at the base.
Israel has denied deliberately targeting the force but says Hezbollah has built strongholds in close proximity to UNIFIL sites. Its previous strikes on UNIFIL posts have drawn international condemnation.
BORDER CROSSING STRUCK
Israel has used airstrikes to pound southern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley and Beirut’s southern suburbs, and has also sent ground forces into southern Lebanon against Hezbollah.
The military said it struck weapon production sites and Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in Beirut as well as Hezbollah targets around the Jousieh border crossing in the northern Bekaa Valley.
It said Hezbollah used the crossing, controlled by the Syrian military, to transfer weapons into Lebanon.
Lebanon’s transport minister Ali Hamieh said the Israeli strike had knocked the Jousieh crossing out of service, leaving the northern route as the only way to Syria.
The UN refugee agency said the strikes were hindering refugees’ attempts to flee. UNHCR spokesperson Rula Amin said some 430,000 people have crossed to Syria since Israel’s campaign started. Lebanon has previously been a major destination for refugees from the Syrian civil war.
“The attacks on the border crossings are a major concern,” Amin said. “They are blocking the path to safety for people fleeing conflict.”
‘REAL URGENCY’
The Israeli campaign spiraled out of a year of cross-border hostilities with Hezbollah, which opened fire on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with its Palestinian ally Hamas, a day after it launched the Oct. 7 attack.
“We have a sense of real urgency in getting to a diplomatic resolution and the full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, such that there can be real security along border between Israel and Lebanon,” Blinken said in London.
He said it was important so “people at both sides of the border can have the confidence to… return to their homes”.
Hezbollah has kept fighting despite heavy blows, including the killing of its leader Hassan Nasrallah. Israel said five of its soldiers had been killed in combat in southern Lebanon, after announcing on Thursday the deaths of five others.
The Israeli military said it had uncovered an underground command center in a village close to the border with Israel and a site concealed in wooded terrain where Kornet anti-tank missiles, launchers, hand grenades and rifles were stored.
Washington has expressed hope that the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, a mastermind of the Oct. 7 attacks, could provide an impetus for an end to fighting.
Officials said on Thursday that US and Israeli negotiators will gather in Doha in the coming days to try and restart talks toward a deal for a ceasefire and the release of hostages in Gaza.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, who met Blinken in London, said “ethnic cleansing” was taking place in northern Gaza. Israel denies such accusations, saying it is separating civilians from Hamas terrorists and moving them to safer areas.
Safadi said: “We are at the moment now where nothing justifies the continuation of the wars. Guns have to go silent.”
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