Too Many Warnings Were Ignored

July 31, 2025

Hi, sweet Meteor readers,

You may recall our pregnancy-themed newsletter last week, which came about because I, your humble editor Nona Willis Aronowitz, am one million months pregnant with my second kid. (As someone who completely avoided summer the first time around, I can tell you that gestating in a heatwave is a whole nother level.) Anyway, today’s my last day at The Meteor ‘til December! Kindly send me some magical baby dust that blesses me with a chill newborn.

Next week, you’ll be in the safe hands of author and former culture director at Glamour Mattie Kahn. Please welcome her with all the enthusiasm I currently have for watermelon ice pops.

Today, we assess the myriad warnings–all in plain sight–that got us to this horrific place in Gaza. Plus, some evil trickery in Texas, and your weekend reading.

Just so damn hot,

Nona Willis Aronowitz

WHAT’S GOING ON

The long, visible road to starvation: Over the past two weeks, the headlines have been full of the devastating news about starvation in Gaza, with experts warning that famine is reaching “a tipping point,” and photos and stories documenting the severity of malnutrition in children. As a result, lawmakers and everyday people who hadn’t said much about Israel’s forced starvation of Gazans are now speaking up on their social media feeds and public platforms, with officials finally voting to stop weapons sales to Israel.

And yet, we have all known what’s coming for more than a year. The writing was on the wall almost immediately: In April 2024, six months after Israel’s defense minister ordered a “complete siege” of Gaza, a director at Human Rights Watch and multiple doctors on the ground warned that children in Gaza were dying from forced starvation. Three months after that, the International Criminal Court charged Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant with, among other things, the “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.” (To be abundantly clear, this is a war crime.) Around the same time, images of starving children started going viral. Three months after that, aid groups told NPR reporters that Israel was starving people in North Gaza, and this past November, the United Nations-affiliated Famine Review Committee warned that famine was imminent in the region.

And yet only now has it become more acceptable for people to say the thing that folks have been saying for hundreds of days.

It’s because we’ve reached the point of no return. It’s no longer the “safe” option to say nothing or to defend the actions of a government when starvation has reached the point that the damage cannot be wholly reversed. It’s finally clear through news coverage, through videos on the ground, through the work of activists, that we’re living in the endgame of an entire population. It is undeniable, it is unconscionable, and when even the most contrarian person on the internet agrees that infants should not be starving to death, fewer and fewer people want to be the one still saying, But are they really starving? (To be clear: There are still some people saying just that.)

The cases of starvation in Gaza are so severe that some people have lost the ability to swallow. “Eventually, you can just get sick enough that the parts of your brain that stimulate you to eat stop working,” one expert explained to NPR. Imagine being so deprived of food for so long that your body does not even have the mechanical ability to try eating.

That means that even if all the aid trucks were allowed in tomorrow, Gazans would require immense medical intervention to recover, because of refeeding syndrome. Two directors for the Global Food and Water Security Program wrote last month, “Malnutrition during periods of particular developmental vulnerability, like gestation or early life, can also manifest in permanent biological changes that are encoded at a genetic level.” They go on to confirm that “irreparable and generational harm has already occurred in Gaza.”

Generational. Harm. Children who will not be born for another 20 or 30 years will still be contending with the physical and psychological impacts of this massacre in some way. All we can do now is act en masse to fight for a world that listens the first time.

If you want to make that change now, you can. Small amounts of aid are entering Gaza, making the difference between survival and certain death. To donate to organizations that have had some success in distributing aid to Palestinians on the ground, please click here.

AND:

Speaking of aid: Chris Smalls, a union leader and American activist who was aboard the Handala, an aid ship attempting to reach the coast of Gaza as part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, was apprehended by the Israeli Defense Force on Saturday in international waters. According to the Coalition’s statement, Smalls, the only Black person onboard, was choked and beaten while in Israeli custody, with a level of force that was not used against the other detained activists. Smalls was finally released this afternoon.
“Gerrymandering” may be a word that puts people to sleep, but the current plan to redraw district lines in Texas should have all of us awake and at attention. TL;DR: If Republicans are allowed to change the district lines, they’ll secure five more safe red House seats in 2026. The GOP isn’t even trying to pretend otherwise; the Texas GOP has openly admitted that this redistricting would be “an essential step to preserving GOP control in Congress.” Start calling.
Former vice president Kamala Harris announced yesterday that she will not be running for governor of California, saying in part, “For now, my leadership—and public service—will not be in elected office.” We know she’s got a book coming out, but what else you working on, friend? 👀
The Lord has heard the cries of her people, and finally, the savior cometh: Director Gurinder Chadha is working on a sequel to the greatest sports film ever made, Bend It Like Beckham. The original, released in 2003, was a huge boon to women’s soccer, which at the time was on a slow rise in the U.S. in the wake of the 1999 World Cup. Now, two decades later, everyone is watching women’s sports, and Chadha’s beloved characters Jess and Jules can take a little bit of the credit.

Did you know it’s possible to have your uterus literally turned inside out? The Meteor’s Angie Jaime does. She writes in Vogue about her harrowing experience in the time after her baby was born, and contemplates whether California’s profound progress in lowering maternal mortality rates ultimately saved her life.
On Tuesday night, a game between the Golden State Valkyries and the Atlanta Dream had to be put on pause because someone threw a lime-green dildo onto the court. You can’t even get bottled water into most arenas, and someone smuggled in a dildo? Security!?
Today is National Mutt Day and while that doesn’t really mean anything, we jumped on the excuse to share this picture of our dogs.

FROM L-R: CHICO MELERO-URENA, CASEY SKYWALKER, SASHA MELERO-URENA, AND HANK LEIVE-BERNSTEIN.

WEEKEND READING 📚

On lifelong courage: Meet the 36 Mayan women, some now in their eighties, bringing their attackers to justice in Guatemala. (New York Times Magazine)

On riding in cars with girls: Jesse Lacy tells a queer coming-of-age story through a series of vehicular vignettes. (Audacity)

On a national treasure: Caitlin Gibson writes a rare profile of Ms. Rachel, who’s been increasingly focused on lifting up the traumatized children of Gaza. (Washington Post)