In conditions of starvation, their growing bodies’ nutritional needs are higher than those of adults, and so their reserves are depleted faster. Last week, over a period of just 72 hours, 21 children died in Gaza of malnutrition and starvation. The result is a head-on confrontation between political establishments and the public in a situation that is no longer manageable. Protesting might feel like screaming into a void, but even the little change we have seen – the pitifully few trucks of aid now rolling into Gaza – is down to the strain of that confrontation with the political establishment. The purpose is to quieten the public through verbal laudanum, or distract it by the lowest-cost calls for recognising a Palestinian state.