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There’s a flurry of reports out of Gaza that point to one conclusion: people there are suffering and some are dying from hunger. The Star carried a story on the front page of its print edition on Thursday reporting that 115 charity and human rights groups — including such reputable organizations as Doctors Without Borders and Save the Children — now say a “large proportion� of Gaza’s two million people are starving.

under the stark headline “Gazans are Dying of Starvation.� Now, “according to doctors in the territory, an increasing number of their patients are suffering — and dying — from starvation.�

, “testimonies from doctors, relief workers and Gazans this week make it clear that a worst-case scenario is finally unfolding: Nearly 1-in-3 people are going multiple days without eating, according to the United Nations, and hospitals are reporting rising deaths from malnutrition and starvation.�

You can pick holes in this or that report, but at a certain point it adds up to a grim picture that cannot be denied. Still, I expect it will be challenged by a substantial number of people, judging by the reaction I received to my earlier piece about the shootings near food distribution centres.

To be clear, most people who wrote in seemed glad that a bit of attention was being focused on a crisis that has too often faded into the background. But some found it all objectionable, and they made some points that deserve an answer.

I’m not talking about the tiny handful who don’t want to hear anything that dilutes what they see as Israel’s total responsibility for every death. They objected to my writing that Hamas “started this horror� by massacring 1,200 Israelis and seizing hundreds of hostages on Oct. 7, 2023. What about 1948, the “Nakba,� and so on? That makes me a “truly despicable liar,� according to one person.

Other critics were more reasonable. Some of their questions:

• How can you rely on figures from sources like the “Hamas-run� Gaza health ministry? A fair question, but since no independent journalists are allowed into Gaza all sources are questionable. But as the Star has reported, the UN considers the health ministry numbers to be the most reliable and they are supplemented by information from aid agencies and the like.

The bottom line for me is that while no one number can be taken to the bank, multiple reports over a long period of time lead to an inescapable conclusion: something very bad is going on.

• Why don’t you focus on Hamas and its genocidal intent towards Jews? I wrote about Hamas’s disdain for all life shortly after the Oct. 7 attack. The devastation in Gaza can’t be justified by that.

• Why don’t you point out that all this could stop if Hamas released all Israeli hostages and ended its fight? I agree — Hamas should do just that. Logically, that should end the destruction and lead to some form of reconstruction for Palestinians in Gaza, but I wonder if it would.

Some influential Israelis have a very different vision. Amichai Eliyahu, heritage minister in the Netanyahu government, that Israel intends to resume Jewish settlement into Gaza, and “all Gaza will be Jewish … We don’t need to be concerned about hunger in the Strip.� Would returning hostages erase that wish?

• Why don’t you care as much about the Druze? That one took me a bit by surprise. The point is that gets hardly any media attention, and the suggestion is it’s because no Jews are involved. So for the record: the killing of Druze is reprehensible and should stop.

• What would you have Israel do in a very difficult situation? Frankly, I don’t know. But I do know what it shouldn’t do, and that’s what it’s doing now — presiding over a situation in which a defenceless civilian population is slowly being starved.