Israel Is Still Deliberately Starving Gaza to Death

The situation in Gaza is as dire as it has ever been.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) released a new report this week raising the alarm about the severity of the humanitarian catastrophe engulfing the people of Gaza:

Half a million people in the Gaza Strip face starvation, a global hunger monitor said on Monday, saying the Israeli-blockaded enclave still confronts a critical risk of famine with a high risk of one occurring by the end of September.

The people of Gaza are being starved to death by the Israeli government. It is a policy of deliberate starvation, and it has been aimed at inflicting collective punishment on the entire population. This has been Israeli policy for the last nineteen months, and the U.S. has backed the government committing these starvation crimes throughout the conflict. While the president gladhands with despots and sells more weapons to war criminals as he talks about peace, the people of Gaza are being slowly murdered with hunger with our government’s blessing and support.

There has already been famine in Gaza, and there have been famine-like conditions in Gaza for more than a year. If nothing changes, things will get much worse in the next few months. Conditions briefly improved during the ceasefire that the Israeli government shattered, but now the situation in Gaza is as dire as it has ever been.

Even when famine hasn’t been officially declared, people are still starving and dying. The World Health Organization (WHO) made this clear again this week:

“We do not need to wait for a declaration of famine in Gaza to know that people are already starving, sick and dying, while food and medicines are minutes away across the border,” said WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “Today’s report shows that without immediate access to food and essential supplies, the situation will continue to deteriorate, causing more deaths and descent into famine.”

Waiting until there is a formal declaration of famine means that the world has already waited far too long to stave off massive loss of life. When a patient is diagnosed with cancer, doctors don’t wait until it has metastasized throughout the body before beginning treatment, but the world has responded to the threat of famine in Gaza with just that sort of indifference and lethargy. Hunger has been burning through the people of Gaza for a year and a half, and it is only when things begin to approach the point of no return that the outside world even notices that it is happening.

The U.N. has been blunt in its condemnation of the Israeli blockade:

“Blocking aid starves civilians,” explained Tom Fletcher, U.N. under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, in a statement last week. “It strips them of dignity and hope. Blocking aid kills.”

There are huge stockpiles of aid waiting outside Gaza to be brought in, but the Israeli government refuses to let it reach the people that need it.

Children are wasting away, going blind from malnutrition, and dying right now. +972 reported last week on the effects of the starvation policy:

Twelve-year-old Rahaf Ayad is so malnourished she can barely speak. Her hair is falling out. Her ribs protrude. She can hardly move her limbs. She blinks slowly, her eyelids heavy.

Originally from Al-Shuja’iya in eastern Gaza City, Rahaf now lives with her seven family members in a single room in a relative’s house in the city’s Al-Rimal neighborhood.

Shurooq, Rahaf’s mother, explained that her daughter’s health began deteriorating rapidly due to the lack of food. “If anyone touches her, or she tries to move her arms or legs, she just cries out in pain,” she told +972. “She says it feels like her body is burning from the inside. She asks for chicken, meat, or eggs — but there’s nothing in the markets.”

The report goes on to say that 70,000 children in Gaza are hospitalized with acute malnutrition, and more than a million lack the daily minimum nutritional requirements for survival.

The WHO also recently called attention to the long-term debilitating effects of acute malnutrition on the population, especially young children:

"What we see is an increasing trend in generalised acute malnutrition," Peeperkorn told a press briefing by video link from Deir al-Balah. "I've seen a child that's five years old, and you would say it was two-and-a-half."

"Without enough nutritious food, clean water and access to healthcare, an entire generation will be permanently affected," he said, warning of stunting and impaired cognitive development.

The survivors of this starvation crime will bear the marks of it for the rest of their lives. The health and development of hundreds of thousands of children have already been greatly harmed, and the longer that this is allowed to go on the worse it will be for them. All of this was preventable. The worst can still be prevented if the relevant governments have the political will to stop it, but there is a shocking lack of urgency in how the world has responded to the unfolding disaster.

One of the most horrifying things about the famine stalking Gaza is that it is entirely man-made and it could be stopped at any time, but the world’s governments look on and just let it happen. Our government is even worse than that. Our government is no mere bystander. It is an accomplice in the destruction of the population of Gaza.

Starvation is a particularly cruel and dehumanizing weapon to use against a population. It is prohibited under international law because it is such an atrocious and degrading thing to do to other people. It is one of the most evil things that one group of people can do to another, and Israel has been doing it to the Palestinians of Gaza for more than a year and a half.

The people of Gaza can’t wait any longer for the world to help them. The siege must end before it is too late.