Resolves inclusively based on the highest concrete estimate given by a major international body such as the United Nations or the World Food Program of the number of Gazans who have starved to death for reasons related to the current phase of the Israel/Hamas conflict that escalated on October 7th, 2023.
Update 2025-05-17 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The creator has clarified the interpretation of 'starved to death' for the purposes of this market:
Deaths reported as due to malnutrition will count.
Deaths resulting from consuming awful semi-edible food substitutes (where this leads to death) will count.
Deaths resulting from consuming only a small fraction of the calories a human needs to survive (where this leads to death) will count.
Update 2025-05-19 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): For an estimate to be considered 'given by a major international body':
The international body can be reporting or relaying figures from another source (e.g., the United Nations reporting figures provided by the Gaza Ministry of Health). Such relayed figures will be considered 'given by' the international body for the purposes of this market.
Update 2025-05-20 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): Miscarriages are not expected to be counted.
1,000
1.00@nathanwei Yes, for example if people were eating a really awful semi-edible food substitute and started dying, that would still count for the purposes of this market. Same with people eating only a small fraction of the calories a human needs to survive and dying of that.
326 deaths reported by Aljazeera, which seems hard to determine if they're mixing two metrics or if some people would have recovered if they had sufficient nutrients.
Depending on when some believe life starts, 300 miscarriages among pregnant women caused by nutritional deficiencies might count. I don't count it but horrible nevertheless.
source: https://aje.io/2dylxq?update=3722762
@Samaritan I don’t think we’ll be counting any miscarriages, but I’ll assess the sources for the AJ number.
@Panfilo The source is literally the Hamas media office. Hamas claimed 57 deaths from malnutrition in the last two months.
@nathanwei When every organization that could be tracking this gets intentionally bombed unfortunately there aren't many data sources and the one left there genocide-deniers like to dismiss. Even though it's the only one left by design.
Here's the World Health Organization thoughts about the situation from over a week ago:Since the aid blockade began on 2 March 2025, 57 children have reportedly died from the effects of malnutrition, according to the Ministry of Health. This number is likely an underestimate and is likely to increase. If the situation persists, nearly 71 000 children under the age of five are expected to be acutely malnourished over the next eleven months, according to the IPC report.
source: https://www.who.int/news/item/12-05-2025-people-in-gaza-starving--sick-and-dying-as-aid-blockade-continues
Here's the IPC report cited: https://www.ipcinfo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ipcinfo/docs/IPC_Gaza_Strip_Acute_Food_Insecurity_Malnutrition_Apr_Sept2025_Special_Snapshot.pdf
Because I'm busy I used chatGPT o3 to analyze the report so take the following with a grain of salt and read the report if you want more details:
Hospitals and civil-registry offices in much of northern Gaza have been destroyed or inaccessible; many deaths go unrecorded.
A Bayesian “informed guess” (placing 80 % weight on severe under-count, 20 % on accuracy) would put the true malnutrition-related toll somewhere in the 300 – 1 500 range for the period, but the only verifiable point estimate today remains 326.At least 326 Gazans—including 55 young children—have died from starvation or starvation-related lack of medical care between 2 March and 21 May 2025.The recorded figure almost certainly understates the real toll, but it is the best-documented number available after the IPC special snapshot (12 May 2025) and subsequent WHO/Health-Ministry briefings.
chatGPT link: https://chatgpt.com/share/682de777-d508-800c-be90-a90548c552bb
@Samaritan Yes as I said Hamas claimed 57 children deaths in those 2 months from malnutrition of children. That's what the UN, the "major international body" you mention in the description of the question, is reporting.
I don't see the numbers "326" or "55" in either of the reports you linked by the way. I command-f'd it. I think maybe GPT hallucinated it.
@Samaritan Do you count "starvation-related lack of medical care" as starvation? I guess you would have to ask @Panfilo . He has clarified that malnutrition counts as starvation. But how about the "starvation-related lack of medical care"? Does that count? I guess @Panfilo needs to issue another clarification. These deaths have to be directly attributable only to malnutrition? Can they come from malnutrition exacerbating another health problem? I would argue we should be pretty strict. This is about starving to death, not malnutrition exacerbating other existing health problems.
@nathanwei
> We are nowhere near 250.
From my last comment: A Bayesian “informed guess” (placing 80 % weight on severe under-count, 20 % on accuracy) would put the true malnutrition-related toll somewhere in the 300 – 1 500 range for the period, but the only verifiable point estimate today remains 326.
> Do you count "starvation-related lack of medical care" as starvation?The larger figure (242) covers those who died because life-saving medicines, dialysis consumables, antibiotics, etc. were unavailable and they were already severely under-nourished. Most famine-monitoring bodies treat these as famine-related mortality even if the immediate cause is disease.
@Samaritan This number "242" also doesn't appear in the reports you listed. I used command-f and I could not find it. All I'm seeing is double-digit numbers.
I really do not think that deaths from disease should count as starvation deaths. It's of course up to @Panfilo .
@nathanwei Agreed it's up to @Panfilo
Because I queried chatGPT asking to extend the timeline till May 21st (today's date) it extrapolated but also chatGPT ended up doing a search of news sources too to extend the data. Of course, take that with a grain of salt since it is LLMs at their current level.
I suspect it will be 1000+ deaths given how crazy Israel is behaving and how slow countries have been to actually sanction them, which will be too late. But I'd love to be wrong and lose mana here.
@Samaritan The US and Israel just started aid shipments again. I don't think Gazans are really on the brink of starvation. Gazan civilians are storing lots of food at home. As they should, it's an uncertain situation. I saw videos of anti-Hamas protests in Gaza on May 19, and the Gazans didn't look emaciated. I also saw estimates that Gaza had 4-5 months of food when Israel cut off the aid 2 months ago. They are letting food aid back in. Anyway, I hope Israel wins the war quickly. Hopefully by EOY. I think that if anything the sanctions will just prolong the war and prolong the suffering of Gazans. Hamas praised the recent action by the UK, France, and Canada.
@nathanwei I agree that comorbidities here are challenging. Obviously I wouldn't count someone who was malnourished and then struck by a bomb, but if people die to usually non-fatal diseases due to severe malnutrition, one could make a reasonable argument that should count. For now I will not buy more shares as we wait for more data and look for a good heuristic of how to decide which deaths are mostly via starvation. My current position is very small for my portfolio.
@Panfilo It's very hard to figure out exactly what should count and what should not. Do you have to just estimate what fraction would have died if they had more food? Do we just rely on UN statistics?
@nathanwei
> Gazan civilians are storing lots of food at home.
what homes? they store what they can carry.
> estimates that Gaza had 4-5 months of food
The main sources for this were Israeli propaganda or those citing Israeli propaganda. I trust World Health Organization much more and I think most others do too.
> Anyway, I hope Israel wins the war quickly.
Israelis can't agree on a definition of "win" here. Also calling it a "war" at this point is a joke.
> I think that if anything the sanctions will just prolong the war and prolong the suffering of Gazans.
Not sure how that makes any sense. The aid you cited at the start of the comment is literally because of international pressure.
> Hamas praised the recent action by the UK, France, and Canada.
What's the point of adding this? Did you think Hamas would say "oh no please don't sanction the people committing genocide on Palestinians"?
Their tents, I guess.
I must admit I have not followed these issues closely, but the videos I saw from the May 19 protest are not starving people.
It is a war.
I was thinking that these diplomatic moves will boost the morale of Hamas, which will help them and will lengthen the war.
My point was that if these actions do benefit Hamas, then they will prolong the war. If Hamas feels international pressure is against Israel, they will be less likely to give up the hostages and exist Gaza, which is what will end the war.
@nathanwei
Good points.
> the videos I saw from the May 19 protest are not starving people.
TBF, I would expect that to select for people who are not experiencing a severe caloric deficit.
@meefburger Well there are two selection effects here, pushing in opposite directions. First, people who are really hungry will not want to get up and go to protests. Second, people in a more dire situation will have more incentive to protest.
We'll be hearing more about starving soon unless Israel decides to start acting civilized for once
Source: https://x.com/DropSiteNews/status/1915741339041308859
@Samaritan Israel just started allowing aid back in, as part of the American-Israeli plan to send aid back to Gaza.
@nathanwei 🙏 I read 93 trucks finally that have been waiting on the border for months. Hoping it saves the lives of those on the cusp.
@Samaritan I hope so too. I want the hostages released and I want Hamas out of power. I don't want Gazan civilians to starve to death.
I think that few if any Gazans are actually on the cusp, and I don't think the situation is as dire as you do, but certainly aid needed to resume at some point or there would be actual starvation.
The most recent update I heard from the UN was from July. Just 34 deaths.
The UN could go higher.
Hamas reports another 57 since March from malnutrition: https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/05/1163166
Does malnutrition count as starvation? What is the current count?
@nathanwei Yes, for example if people were eating a really awful semi-edible food substitute and started dying, that would still count for the purposes of this market. Same with people eating only a small fraction of the calories a human needs to survive and dying of that.
@Panfilo OK. The UN reports the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health saying 57 malnutrition deaths in the last two months. So we count all reported malnutrition deaths, even if reported by Hamas, and we do not discuss the base rate of these deaths?
Over 20K Americans died of malnutrition in 2022 for what it's worth. America is much larger than Gaza. But countries like Egypt have a much higher rates of malnutrition than America and are probably the correct baseline.
Even with all of this, I count 89 deaths. And now aid shipments will start again. I don't think we will get to 250 by EOY.
@nathanwei I think you're assessing things pretty reasonably, I just think there will be another update to the recent number, and very possibly similar issues later this year.