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While we're distracted by Coldplay concert kiss cams, 20-year-olds in swimsuits arguing on "Love Island" and Donald Trump trying to not talk about the Epstein files, children are starving to death in Gaza.

I would tell you to Google "Gaza famine" and see the innumerable pictures of skeletal children cradled by their distraught parents, but I have, and it's not advisable. Trust me when I say that you don't want those images in your brain. Maybe words are better. Here are some:

According to UNICEF's regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, Edouard Beigbeder, 6,500 children in Gaza were brought to UNICEF with severe malnutrition last month. In just the first two weeks of July, more than 5,000 children have already required treatment. Since the Israeli blockade started preventing the flow of food, medicine and fuel into Gaza, dozens of children have died of starvation. More will surely follow.

The World Central Kitchen, a humanitarian aid organization, stopped its efforts in Gaza in November, after an Israeli air strike killed some of its workers there. The UN says that more than 1,000 people have died simply trying to get food in the region. There are videos of people attacking aid workers in a frenzy of desperation at under-supplied distribution stations. The World Food Program said that this month, Israelis opened fire on a group of Palestinians trying to get food from delivery trucks, using "tanks, snipers and other weapons." Israel confirmed shooting some aid-seekers but has disputed the Gaza-reported death toll of 80 in the incident.

On July 25, Israel finally announced that it would allow some foreign countries to drop food aid in parachutes on Gaza. Last year, people were killed in similar drops when the parachutes failed to deploy. And even if the food drops were a safe way to get aid to starving Gazans, it's an inefficient method of finding those who need help the most. It's also hardly enough to scratch the surface of the mountain of demand, with hundreds of thousands in dire straits.

Children, whose bodies are quickly developing and who have higher nutritional needs than adults do, are at greater risk than adults in time of famine and starvation. Malnutrition also makes children, whose immune systems are immature, more susceptible to infection and disease, which can lead to lack of appetite, diarrhea and vomiting, impeding their ability to recover from malnutrition.

Even for the children who do not die of starvation, severe malnutrition comes with a host of long-term ill consequences, from organ damage and psychological issues to problems with brain and muscle development. If they even make it to adulthood, these children will face challenges in perpetuity because of their suffering now.

There's passionate disagreement about the cause of, and the solution to, the conflict in Gaza, but there can be none about this: It is a sin to allow any child to starve, particularly when a surplus of food waits in storage nearby.

Our world offers new and increasing technological marvels -- among them AI models that can propose sophisticated solutions for maximizing aid delivery while reducing security risks to Israeli citizens.

As a small experiment, I asked Google's Gemini for help, and it gave me several well-crafted suggestions for threading the needle. Its ideas included increasing the checkpoints for aid into Gaza beyond the one in Rafah, adding international oversight to reduce the burden on Israel's limited manpower and pre-screening shipments from trusted aid organizations like the Red Cross, the World Food Program and UNICEF.

If one person on a laptop can get decent answers after five minutes of casual conversation with an AI chatbot, certainly diplomats with decades of experience and the power to effect real change can do better.

It is long past time for the citizens of the United States to insist that our leaders exert every bit of influence we have with the Israeli government to make changes to the status quo. Food should not rot in silos while children starve. Whatever creativity, cooperation or cost required to get the desired result is insignificant when compared to the lives that will be saved.

Feel free to email this column to your senator, congressperson, governor, president or vice president to encourage them to act.

It's tempting to look away when we encounter disturbing realities. We'd rather gossip about Taylor Swift or guess why CBS canceled "The Late Show." But Stephen Colbert and Travis Kelce are going to be fine.

That's something we can't confidently say about the Palestinian children in Gaza.

It's they who need -- and deserve -- our attention now. Their lives may depend on it.

To learn more about Georgia Garvey, visit GeorgiaGarvey.com.

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