Co-host Ryan Grim (70:53)
And we can quickly go through two others. So another one is six year old Najwa Hussein Hajaj. First of all, the Free Press claimed that these were all viral images. Even that is extremely dubious assertion. Najwa's photo was included in a CNN slideshow. How you define viral, I don't know, but it appears more like they just went cherry picking any image that was associated with any story about starvation and then googled until they could find somebody who also had a health condition. I looked it up, by the way. There are more cases of child disability in Gaza before October 7 than average around the world. I think UNICEF has it at like 12%. Average is 9 or 10%. So 20 to 30% higher in Gaza. And you can imagine, well, why would there be more childhood disability like in Gaza in a place that has been under siege for many decades. So using the fact that somebody has a disability against them in this case is further undermined by the fact that the fact that they have the disability might be related to the siege that their families have been living under for generations. But so what they found with Hajjaj is they, they found that she had an esophageal condition. And the Free Press suggested that, that this esophageal stenosis rather than the imposed starvation was responsible for her condition. So Maha talked to her mother and she says, quote, and before the war started, we had taken her to the hospital and she was diagnosed with esophageal stenosis. Her condition had not yet worsened. And a surgery was scheduled for December 4, 2023, quote. But of course, with hospitals being bombed, others overwhelmed with victims, any lack of equipment, her surgery was canceled. This is when our own war with her condition began, unquote. Which again stands to reason, if you imagine in your own life, if you and your family and your entire community are overnight shut off from access to medical care, emergency departments are open. If you, if you get, if you're a victim of the bombing or you're shot and you know, then they can treat you. But anything scheduled, like they're working on your esophageal condition, like, that's canceled, right? That's. It's just, it's just not happening. And so she started, started vomiting, was unable to, unable to keep things down. In the past, her mother had said the supplements and medical fluids had kept her in a stable condition despite this situation. But without those supplements and medical fluids, then she began to succumb to the ravages of, of malnutrition. And she was diagnosed, you know, with severe malnutrition. Quote. We tried to secure her proper food for her condition, like pureed vegetables, yogurt, juice or soft cheese, but none of these were available during the starvation campaign. We couldn't secure anything but lentils. And so she was then successfully evacuated and since then has gone, undergone, you know, three surgeries for this, for this condition. But this is what all experts will tell you that when, when famine hits, it is not the healthiest people who suffer the most first is the people who are most susceptible to that. And just think about in your own life, if that happened, if all of a sudden you were cut off from food and medical aid, who would go down first? And then imagine somebody came to you and said, well, you know, your grandmother had this condition, so why are you blaming us? You're the one that cut off food and medicine. That's why I'm blaming you. My grandmother was doing okay, even though she had her condition. And finally one more. One of the adults is Hamza Ismail Mishmish, his 25 year old, who had a lifelong pre existing condition, which I think was obvious in the photos of him. And so his brother told Dropsite, quote, Hamza was born with cerebral palsy and congenital anomalies and had lived with this condition for years. We used to follow up with doctors and he survived all these years on nutritional supplements and vitamins. During the war, we faced difficulties securing the nutritional supplements and it was impossible to compensate with fresh food with the borders closed. And even when international Aid was allowed in. All we could find was canned food. But in the recent months of starvation, his condition rapidly deteriorated. And Shadi added that although his body did appear thin before the war, quote, one can clearly see the difference between how he looked then and, and how he looks now. The recent starvation made us completely helpless toward his condition. Food supplements were completely unavailable. And then the part that's even more brutal to kind of think about living with these conditions because this is difficult enough under the most comfortable conditions, living in a nice house with all the access that you could have to food and medicine. This. Anybody who has lives with this condition or knows somebody who does, it's very difficult. But Mishmish's family added to dropsite that his health has been further worsened by the family's conditions and displacement, forcing him to live in a makeshift tent after their home was bombed. Quote, this tent cannot protect him from the scorching heat in summer or the freezing cold in winter. In cold weather, we cannot keep him warm, so his body develops infections, his feet swell and his entire body weakens. We would need at least three weeks to help him recover from these symptoms. All these circumstances combined or why his body has never been the same since the war. So imagine this is your family member and Barry Weiss and Olivia Rheingold come up to you and say it's because of his cerebral palsy that he's in this condition. Like he's 25 years old. We've known him his whole life. The condition is because of the siege and the war. And to, to even make you point that out to them is a form of crazy making.
