Israel's Criminal Starvation of Gaza

The use of starvation as a weapon is a war crime.

The Israeli government resumed the full siege of Gaza this weekend:

Israel announced on Sunday that it was immediately halting the entry of all goods and humanitarian assistance into Gaza, trying to force Hamas into accepting a temporary extension of the cease-fire in the war.

The move disrupts the existing, agreed-upon framework for negotiating a permanent end to the war and puts the fate of the hostages into uncharted territory. The draconian halt on goods and aid, including fuel, is also likely to worsen conditions for the roughly two million inhabitants of Gaza, after the 15-month war left much of the coastal enclave in ruins.

The use of starvation as a weapon is a war crime. Israel’s use of aid as a bargaining chip isn’t new, but it is still outrageous. The delivery of aid should never be tied to anything else. One of the biggest failures of U.S. policy in Gaza has been the decision to link humanitarian assistance to other conditions. Jeremy Konyndyk explained last year why this is clearly wrong and illegal:

International law is unambiguous that humanitarian relief cannot be denied to put pressure on a civilian population. Doing so constitutes collective punishment and a clear war crime. Legally, a warring party is obliged to facilitate and protect relief efforts for civilians irrespective of the status of any cease-fire negotiations [bold mine-DL], and neither Hamas nor Israel has the right to use the welfare of Palestinian civilians in Gaza as a negotiating chip.

The Israeli government has been ignoring its obligations for the last seventeen months, and it has faced no pressure to change course. The evidence that Israel is committing a genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza was already overwhelming, and this cutoff of aid is more proof. Despite the brief respite of the last few weeks, famine is stalking Gaza as a result of this deliberate policy of starvation.

Egypt and Qatar have both condemned the blockade as a violation of international law. The Saudis and Jordanians have also denounced it.The U.N. has called for the blockade to be lifted.

Netanyahu is trying to change the agreement so that Israel doesn’t have to withdraw fully from Gaza, and he is committing war crimes against the entire population of Gaza to make his point. He would also like to be able to shift the blame for the collapse of the ceasefire, but in this case there is no question that he and his government are at fault. If the ceasefire falls apart, it is important to understand that it it is happening because Netanyahu wants to renege on earlier commitments.

Blowing up the ceasefire is what many in Netanyahu’s coalition have been wanting from the start. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, one of the most extreme members of the government, has said “that ensuring the aid halt was the reason his Religious Zionism party had stayed in the government despite opposing the ceasefire agreement.” Netanyahu is catering to the extremists in his coalition, and the Trump administration is fully on board with that.

If the Trump administration really wanted the war to end, they would be opposing this blockade and insisting that the Israeli government follow through with its commitments for the next phase of the ceasefire. Of course, the blockade was coordinated with the Trump administration, and the administration has endorsed the collective punishment of the people of Gaza. That isn’t surprising when the president spent a fair amount of time over the last month talking about the expulsion of the population and the theft of their land. Trump’s dangerous rhetoric about “taking over” Gaza signaled to Netanyahu that the U.S. won’t get in the way of whatever he wants to do.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is rushing more weapons to them using the bogus “emergency” loophole that previous administrations have also used to bypass Congress:

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has invoked “emergency authorities” to bypass Congress and send $4 billion in weapons to Israel, the second time in a month that the Trump administration has skirted the process of congressional approval for sending arms to the country.

Israel is sabotaging the ceasefire, and the Trump administration is rewarding them for it.