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.
Update 2025-10-09 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The Gaza Health Ministry (GHM) numbers will continue to be used as the primary data source as long as neutral proxies like CNN and Wikipedia do not migrate to a better primary data source. The creator notes that historically, the GHM has not been shown to be dramatically more biased than other native data sources.
1,000
3.00@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.
@b575 The issue is that claims about Hamas or other political actors manipulating the data are very hard to verify or falsify. The proportion of starving people who are children has gone down which is a sign of manipulation but it’s rather speculative.
@nathanwei The fact that we have few reliable sources for the data that interest us does not seem a good reason to trust the definitely-manipulated one.
@b575 Historically, the GHM has not been shown to be dramatically more biased than other native data sources. But to reiterate what I've said before, we're only using those numbers as long as more neutral proxies like CNN and Wikipedia don't migrate to a better primary data source.
They seemed to have stopped updating at 440 on September 19.
See Al-Jazeera:
Wikipedia, WHO, and others are running with the 251+ number. With the declaration of a famine by the UN, hopefully more information will start to get out. There seems to be a part of Gaza City that is functioning, with Rafah mostly depopulated, and the rest of Gaza in varying states of destitution and desolation.
@Panfilo the UN IPC declared famine in one section of Gaza, the Gaza governorate, ignoring the criteria based on death tolls. You would need hundreds of total deaths per day (2 out of every 10K in the population) to declare a famine, but the UN seems to have gone with "deaths are under-reported, trust me bro".. It was based on data ending in mid-July. Since then aid has surged. I don't expect that the numbers will increase so much. Even keeping up 6 at EOY would give another 900. I expect it to drop before then so I think 50% for 1000+ is way too high.
@nathanwei In any case I doubt the new Gaza City offensive will improve the food situation.
@Chumchulum If it finishes quickly there might be an improvement afterward. There also is going to be a steady improvement in the rest of the strip. But yeah in Gaza City itself of course things will get worse in the near term. On the other hand, people are evacuating and fleeing from Gaza City.
@Chumchulum Actually I think the Gaza City offensive just resulted in the evacuation of the vast majority of Gaza City's population into other areas where there is lots of humanitarian aid. In conjunction with a flood of aid into the strip in the last month, the situation looks to be improving greatly.
Hamas-run GHM which @Panfilo uses for resolution now reporting 188, with a steady rate of 7-8 per day.
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.