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.
Update 2025-07-30 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): * The Gaza Health Ministry's numbers for malnutrition deaths will be the primary resolution source, provided they are treated as reliable and reported by major international bodies (e.g., the WFP).
If international bodies stop reporting these numbers or deem them suspect, a different resolution standard will be sought.
@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.
I made a related market, about whether there will be a famine:
https://manifold.markets/nathanwei/will-the-un-declare-a-famine-in-gaz
Over the last couple weeks and as usual, the Gaza Health Ministry's numbers are being treated as fairly reliable by international bodies. As long as that is the case and places like CNN and the WFP are confidently using those numbers for malnutrition deaths, we will treat that as the resolution source. If those numbers spike in a way that makes the international orgs suddenly stop reporting them or say they're now more suspect, then we will look for a different resolution standard. I have been betting on the market again, as I feel things are now much more clear cut than they were 2.5 months ago.
We're at what, 113 malnutrition deaths as per the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health?
@nathanwei 1/4 of all starvation deaths in the last 3 months have occurred in the last 3 days. I would expect those numbers to rise.
@Marnix 122 now. My hope is that the GHF cover for preventing other/sufficient aid inside doesn’t last much longer.
@Panfilo I think the GHF is providing sufficient aid. There are enough calories going in there. The issue is the distribution. Mobs of hungry Gazans lead to chaos. Airdropping aid has a psychological effect which can prevent mobs of people storming the aid distribution.
@nathanwei This is not the case. Far fewer aid trucks are being allowed in than is necessary, especially when people are at this level of starvation
@Marnix Huh? I stand by what I said, which is that I think the number of calories going in is enough, but that this is not a sufficient condition for everyone getting enough to aid. I don't think what you wrote contradicts this.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/uns-world-food-program-says-israeli-tanks-and-snipers-opened-fire-on-a-crowd-seeking-aid-in-gaza
A lot of noise to parse through, but it sounds like the increased volume of food entering Gaza via GHF may be joined with an increased rate of killing aid seekers, and thus a chilling effect on food getting to those in need compared to what you'd expect.
@nathanwei CNN and the WFP are running the reports of a spike of 18 malnutrition deaths in the past 24 hours.
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.