I think if you focus on conflicts it's just smaller than other conflicts:
- Russia/Ukraine war: ~150-250K killed on the Russian side, 50K to 100K killed on the Ukrainian side; source
- Sudanese civil war: "Likely significantly more than 150,000 total killed[44] More than 700,000 children with acute malnutrition[45] 8,856,313 internally displaced 3,506,383 refugees[46]" per Wikipedia. Also at risk of famine
Here is a related tweet.
I agree that with the risk of famine losses rise to, potentially, 2.1M. But the whole population of Gaza being killed seems very unlikely. The conflict also seems particularly intractable to affect, although international pressure probably does help on the margins.
Comparing to other causes is trickier, but estimating the number of deaths you could avoid in expectation seems like a good start.
Thanks for raising this. A large‑scale, preventable humanitarian crisis with mass civilian suffering clearly belongs on the EA radar—at minimum as a candidate problem for more systematic investigation. Right now the post reads more like a signal (“why aren’t we talking about this?”) than a case, so it may not spark the engagement you’re hoping for.
Two quick suggestions that could help:
Framing it this way signals that you recognise the need for the usual EA toolkit—scale, neglectedness, tractability—while inviting others to help fill in the numbers. I’d be keen to see a deeper dive or a collaborative back‑of‑the‑envelope if you (or anyone reading) has the bandwidth.