Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts

Is 70-Degree Weather Killing Children in Gaza?

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The New York Times continues to describe the IDF as child-killers. One of the charges is that the children in Gaza are dying of starvation, but it turns out that they aren’t dying of hunger anywhere in Gaza, where children are fed as well as children in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and India.

Ira Stoll examines the other charge being leveled at the IDF about conditions in Gaza — that children are “dying of the cold.” Stoll has taken the trouble to take the temperature in Gaza in the last few weeks, and his findings may surprise you. More on the unusual “freeze” can be found here: “Gaza 70-Degree ‘Cold’ Chills Media Curiosity as New York Times Depicts Israel as Baby Killer,” by Ira Stoll, Algemeiner, January 9, 2025:

The “cold” temperatures in Gaza have been a staple of New York Times and other news coverage — and of anti-Israel activism in the US — in recent weeks. But just how cold is it, actually, in Gaza?

“At Least 5 Babies Are Dead From Cold as Winter Grips Gaza,” was a Dec. 31, 2024 headline in the New York Times. “Dead From Cold” was something of a euphemism, as the real baby-killers, the Times made clear with echoes of classical libels against Jews, were the “Israeli military’s bombardment and attacks.”

Toward the end of the article came a mention of “more heavy rain expected in the coming days, and lows in the mid-40s Fahrenheit.”

The “lows,” in other words, in Gaza would still be more than twelve degrees above freezing. Sweater weather, or weather when a child might need to be wrapped in a blanket, but perfectly manageable. Definitely not anything like what Napoleon’s troops endured in Moscow in 1812 or the Russians went through during the 900-day siege of Leningrad that began in September 1941, or what Ukrainian children are experiencing today.

The Times doubled down on this with a follow-up piece in its Jan. 2, 2024 edition headlined, “No Respite for Gazans as the War Grinds On.”

“Over the past few days, Gazans have endured chilly winter rainstorms; Gazan officials say some infants have died from the cold,” the article said, with no mention of any temperature readings.

The reporter, or more likely reporters, didn’t think to check the international weather channels for the days during which, they were assured by Hamas spokesmen, “some infants died from the cold.” Why not? Why did those reporters for the Times not want to check on the veracity of that claim about infants dying from the cold?

Such claims were widespread. “Born at war, dying in the cold,” was an NBC News headline. “Babies are dying in the cold,” said a Washington Post article published on Jan. 6, about “at least seven infants in Gaza who have died in the cold in recent weeks, according to relatives, doctors, and the enclave’s Health Ministry.” The Post, too, made clear who the real baby-killers were — the Jews — referring to “ongoing Israeli restrictions on aid convoys.”

So, how cold has it been in Gaza? According to TimeAndDate.com, which seems reasonably reliable, the coldest it got in Gaza City for the entire month of December 2024 was 45 degrees Fahrenheit. On Dec. 25 the temperature hit 70 degrees. According to Google, the weather in Rafah, Gaza on Jan. 7, 2025 was sunny with a high of 69, a low of 51, and zero precipitation. Not exactly the Yukon permafrost.

Any infant’s death is tragic. It is indeed possible to die of hypothermia in wet conditions in the 40s, especially without adequate shelter and clothing. Yet it’s also possible to survive in even lower temperatures, even without a fire.

You wouldn’t know it from the press coverage, but infants also do die for reasons other than cold or Israeli bombardment. In New York City in 2021, 400 infants died before their first birthday, for causes including respiratory distress, infections, cardiovascular disorders, sudden infant death syndrome, and congenital malformations.  The Times has paid those New York City deaths less attention than the ones in Gaza, perhaps because they don’t provide as ready an opportunity to vilify the Jewish state.

The “Gazan officials” the Times mentions are part of a Hamas power structure dedicated to defaming Israel. Those officials use information as warfare against the Jewish state they are dedicated to destroy. The Gaza doctors are largely the same. Any claims coming out of Gaza deserve to be treated with a substantial dose of skepticism. They often reflect not so much the reality on the ground but the propaganda agenda of what remains of the Hamas terror organization.

Time and time again, the most extreme claims coming out of Gaza have proven false. There was the New York Times claim that Israel had bombed a hospital. The Times published an editors’ note after it had accompanied the original claim with a photograph of a different demolished building, and after it turned out that the damage to the hospital site was caused by a misfired Palestinian rocket meant for the Jewish state, not an Israeli air strike targeting terrorists in Gaza….

That was the Al-Ahli Hospital, that Hamas claimed had been hit by an Israeli airstrike, killing 500 civilians. It turned out that the hospital had not been hit at all; the missile landed in a car park close to the hospital. It was fired not by the IDF, but by Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The missile misfired, falling to earth inside Gaza. And there were not “500 deaths,” but 52 people killed from the PIJ missile.

So the next time you read in the New York Times about Gazan children who “are dying from the cold,” don’t leave it at that. Find out exactly how cold — talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade, as Robert Frost says in a poem — it really has been in Gaza during the days in question. You might have reason to raise a skeptical eyebrow, just the way Ira Stoll did when he looked up recent temperatures in the Strip.

In December in Gaza and the Palestinian Territories, there was a daily high temperatures decrease by 6°F, from 70°F to 64°F. The temperature rarely fell below 58°F or exceeded 77°F. Daily low temperatures decreased by 5°F, from 56°F to 52°F, rarely falling below 48°F or exceeding 61°F.

And temperatures in Gaza can reach lows of 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit).

Would anyone “freeze to death” in 50-degree weather? Will the New York Times reporters check on such claims by Hamas about children “freezing to death” in Gaza, by finding out exactly what the temperatures in Gaza have been in recent weeks, and do so before they send in their copy to be published? No, of course not. Reporters can’t be expected to fact-check such details.

By the way, I am writing this on January 9, and the temperature in Gaza has been a steady 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Positively balmy.

Comments

  1. It’s sad that any babies are dying. and sadder still that their deaths are being used to propagate lies.

    Many people in the U.S. set their home thermostat at 68 to 70 degrees. Many of those homes, house babies and small children.

    There are blankets in gaza. sin war and his two bodyguards were wrapped in blankets just before sin war was made to take that long dirt nap.

    For some, any lie will do as long as they are the ones telling the lies. And being given the Truth, they will reject it and go with the lies. Like the jury in the OJ trial. No amount of evidence against their lies will change what they claim.

  2. No. Muslims are killing Muslim children in Gaza, but Muslims blame others for the Muslim terrorist actions.v Islam is a Muslim Terrorist Organization. Specifically, Islam is a Muslim Terrorist Ideology and Criminal Organization of discrimination, segregation, supremacy, genocide, deceit, hatred, incitement, sedition, rape, terrorism, and violence against all Non-Muslims as taught in the Quran.

    Islam and its murderous god, Allah, demand a Muslim war against unbelievers because Non-Muslims are criminals under Islam as Allah in Qur’an 8:39 says, “And engage in war with them[Non-Muslims] until there will not be sedition and the religion will be completely to Allah…”

    Islam promotes a terroristic war against unbelievers when Allah in Qur’an 49:15 says, “Surely the believers are only those who believed in Allah and his messenger. They do not doubt, and they performed JIHAD with THEIR MONEY AND THEIR LIVES for the sake of Allah. Those are the truthful.”

    Allah promises Heavenly Paradise for acts of killing when Quran 9:111 says, “Surely Allah has purchased from the believers[Muslims] their souls and their money so that they may have the garden[Heavenly Paradise]. They engage in war for the sake of Allah, so they kill and are killed…”

  3. And yet, there are more than a half million babies killed each year by abortion. And many people supporting the baby killings inclydug NYT, I suppose..

    • Abu, if they could use the unborn baby murders to lie about Israel, they would. They already try to use them in saying Christians don’t care about those babies who escape the knives, scissors, salt, and suction as a *reason* to keep on with the murders of millions of tiny humans..

      They have an agenda, and babies are a weapon to them. They don’t give a hoot about the babies, otherwise.

  4. If the NYT wrote a story of German babies dying in the cold during the invasion of Germany in the winter of 1944-5, they’d probably be arrested for collaborating with the enemy.
    When Hamas unconditionally surrenders, the war is over. Then the process of de-Islamification begins .

  6. Surely there is a Media communications law that could demand the truth?

    • If Hamas frees the hostages this could end ,but then Hamas might have to come home from 5 star hotels in other countries they are hiding in. There might be less aid given the “Gaza people” when the leaders steal most of it for things like off shore real estate buys and off shore bank accounts. Do the leaders of the Gaza give a rats ass for the babies being killed there ,or the suffering brought on by their stating a war with Israel ? Dead babies and people suffering in the Gaza pushes their cause ,Jew are bad for fighting to protect their people from jihad terrorist .From 2006 to the attack that started this war in 2023 what positive things has Hamas done for the people living in the Gaza? Hamas has had the people in Gaza living in a war zone the whole time by launching rockets and other terror attacks against Israel in that time. Does Hamas build hospitals ,or schools or upgrade the water systems ? No even when a foreign country I think it was Belgium sent a crew in there to lay new pipes to fix the water and sewage systems there what did the government of Hamas do? They dug up the pipes cut them and repurpose into missiles. Lobbying missiles into Israel is more important then clean drinking water for the men ,women and children in the Gaza ! If Israel sent 10,000 space heater to the Gaza people I am sure the Hamas goon squad would steal at least 9000 of them .They would either make them into some kind of weapons or sell them back to their own people at a good profit I do not think even the communist ,or the Nazis would treat their own people as bad as Hamas treats it own people. The people in the Gaza are just canon fodder ,to the people governing them Hamas.

    • There’s nothing, Robert. It has in fact been those telling the truth most often condemned for “fake news”.

  7. SOBs in Canada at the CBC in Canada are repeating the lies.

    So what do you do when your cold and wet from it raining? Dig a @#$%ing hole?

    As temperatures dropped in Gaza, this family took refuge in a hole 1.5 metres under their tent
    Parents struggle to protect children from the elements after winter weather hits Gaza
    https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/gaza-weather-war-cold-1.7428617

    Cold weather and heavy rains have pummeled much of the Gaza Strip in recent weeks, leaving many Palestinians living in tents at risk against the elements, with one father digging a hole under his tent to offer refuge for his family.
    Temperatures drop to around 10 C to 15 C at night in Gaza at this time of year.

  8. Is 70-Degree Weather Killing Children in Gaza?
    ……………………………………..

    Just ludicrous. According to most research, the optimal temperature for humans is considered to be around 68°F, with a comfortable range generally between 64°F and 75°F as per the World Health Organization guidelines.

    In other words, this temperature could not be more ideal.

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