The Starvation of Gaza Is a Crime

The Israeli war in Gaza is also a war of starvation against innocent people.

I wrote about the Israeli government’s starvation of the people of Gaza in my new column this week:

There is a humanitarian catastrophe unfolding before our eyes in Gaza. People are not just starving, they are being starved, and it is happening with the support of our government.

Ever since the Israeli government announced the cutoff of food, water, fuel, and power to Gaza, millions of people have been living under siege conditions. This is criminal, and it threatens the population with death from hunger and disease. Even before the war, the people of Gaza lived under severe restrictions, and now conditions are far worse as their infrastructure and homes have been destroyed and they are being deprived of the most basic necessities.

As it happens, Charli Carpenter also wrote about the Israeli government’s use of starvation as a weapon. She writes:

Talk of lack of intentionality or proportionality makes little sense so long as the Israeli military is intentionally using means of warfare incapable of distinguishing civilians from combatants [bold mine-DL]. And to date, Israel has done so in at least two ways: withholding humanitarian supplies and using aerial bombardments in an urban area. And it has done so in full cognizance of the effects on civilians [bold mine-DL]. These acts not only open Israel—and the U.S., as its backer—up to public opprobrium, they likely expose Israeli defense officials and civilian leaders to potential prosecution as war criminals.

Intentionally starving civilians is a war crime explicitly prohibited in numerous instruments, including the Rome Statute, which defines the act as “depriving [civilians] of objects indispensable to their survival, including willfully impeding relief supplies as provided for under the Geneva Conventions.” Nevertheless, immediately after Oct. 7, Israel cut off fuel, electricity, food and water to Gaza, willfully violating this provision of the laws of war [bold mine-DL].

The starvation of the population is the direct, foreseeable result of the Israeli government’s decision to cut off supplies to Gaza. Tom Dannenbaum wrote about the question of intent in his article on the siege last month:

Even assuming the ultimate goal is to coerce or starve out Hamas, those undertaking this siege are pursuing that goal through purposively starving the civilian population as a whole [bold mine-DL]. As such, they are intending to engage in the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, whether they desire or lament the civilian suffering that will ensue.

In addition to the indiscriminate bombing, forced displacement, and the “war on hospitals”, the Israeli war in Gaza is also a war of starvation against innocent people. ,That is the war that the Biden administration and most members of Congress endorse and cheer on, and these are the war crimes that our government is supporting. The Israeli government bears the greatest responsibility for the consequences of their siege, but the U.S. also shares the blame for backing the war without conditions.

Mass starvation today is the result of political and military decisions made by governments. As Alex de Waal explained in Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine, “The underlying story is that famines caused by natural disaster and economic crisis have become rarer, so that all today’s famines are caused by political decision.” We have unfortunately seen many governments using starvation against civilian populations in recent years, and we are seeing it happening again in Gaza in full view of the world. It is not yet too late to halt this terrible crime against the people of Gaza, but to stop it there must be an enduring ceasefire, an end to the siege, and a massive humanitarian relief effort.