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Famine never sleeps in Gaza

Muhammad Amin

Starvation in Gaza is clearly and intentionally caused by Israel, based on medical evidence, testimonies of humanitarian organizations, and direct statements by Israeli leaders, Anadolu Agency’s Hilal Elver says.

Despite the starvation happening openly in the full glare of the media, international bodies are still refusing to classify the genocidal conditions as a famine, with devastating consequences, Elver warns.

A former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Elver says Israel’s famine blockade “is acute, it is visible and it is widely known”, and has been confirmed by multiple witnesses and victims, including local and foreign medical doctors.

She notes the starvation blockade has caused and continues to cause deaths, malnutrition, dehydration and profound suffering among the population”. International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan made the same observation when he issued a statement on May 20, 2024, requesting arrest warrants to stop the genocide in Gaza.

Hesitating on the brink

“As Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip enters its second year, 2.3 million Gazans are struggling to survive. On top of the skyrocketing death toll and injuries caused by military attacks, people are starving from the lack of food and children are dying of malnourishment. The cause of this famine is Israeli-imposed blockades on foodstuffs and other forms of humanitarian relief. Yet the UN Famine Review Committee has failed to formally recognize this harrowing reality, which is destined to worsen as long as there is no cease-fire.”

She says international bodies are still hesitating to classify Israel’s effective blockade as a “famine”, as it will immediately change the colour of the problem and legally compel Israel’s allies to oppose it.

And that is despite famine conditions affecting 100% of the Gaza population. Other famines have been called when starvation conditions affected 40-60% of the population, she notes.

When, by the end of July 2024, the Gaza death toll had breached 40,000, British medical journal Lancet calculated that the true death toll could reach over 186,000, a staggering 8% of Gaza’s population.[1] This number includes more than 20,000 buried under the rubble, including 4,000 children.[2]

“Additionally, 21,000 children are missing in the chaos of war. This includes 17,000 unaccompanied and separated or lost children whose parents are detained or buried in unmarked graves,” Elver writes.

Starvation is a war crime

The secondary effects of the conflict, like malnutrition, infectious diseases, and lack of medical care, have worsened the human tragedy in Gaza.

“Starvation is a war crime if food and water are used as a weapon of war. Starvation in Gaza is clearly and intentionally caused by Israel, based on medical evidence, testimonies of humanitarian organizations, and direct statements by Israeli leaders,” she says.

Famine is the most severe kind of hunger crisis, but is very rare and is almost always artificially induced by human action like warfare.

“But when it does occur, it means that there is an extreme shortage of food and several children and adults within a certain area are dying of hunger on a daily basis. Famine never happens overnight. It is a process that results from political decisions and is almost always attributable to human activity.

“The origins of the Gaza famine can be traced back to 2006 when an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert explained: ‘The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.’

Seventeen years of hunger

“In 2007, the Israeli government implemented the Palestinian “diet” as punishment for the election of Hamas in the 2006 election. Today’s crisis is the culmination of continuous policies to limit access to food based on calculated caloric minimum needs for survival.

“By the start of Israel’s current war on Gaza, the population had been under siege for 17 years. On October 9, 2023, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ordered a halt to all human necessities. No food, no fuel, no electricity, no medicines, no vaccination activities, no access to safe water.

“This collective punishment of the civilian population of Gaza is a direct violation of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention governing belligerent occupation. As basic resources needed to survive were depleted over the following months, humanitarian deprivations quickly reached famine conditions.

Elver says the Gaza famine is unique among conflict-induced starvation because it has been “far more devastating” than other conflict famines seen in other Muslim nations like Somalia, Afghanistan, Yemen and currently Sudan.

“In those countries, 40 to 60% of the population is enduring starvation conditions, but in Gaza famine affects 100% of the population.[5] This means that an entire generation—335,000 children under the age of five—are at risk of stunted growth or wasting if they manage to survive. These conditions adversely affect the physical and mental development of generations to come.”

Gaza famine unique

Alex De Waal, a renowned scholar on famine, told Anadolu “the pace and scale of the destruction of objects indispensable to survival in Gaza surpasses any other case of man-made famine in the last 75 years.”[

What sets the Gaza famine apart, however, is “the speed and the comprehensiveness of that destruction”. He says experts have never seen “a population reduced from an acute stress to an extreme emergency on this scale in a matter of months”.

Moreover, Gaza is the first genocidal battleground in which high-level Israeli government officials have openly and repeatedly used dehumanising, exterminationist language in the course of acknowledging tactics obviously intended to induce mass starvation, De Waal says.

Elver notes legal experts were surprised, if not shocked, that Israeli senior officials “are very clearly publicising their intent”.

She says anything necessary for human life in Gaza “is being destroyed, including food systems; 80 to 96% of agricultural assets, including greenhouses and irrigation systems, have been damaged or demolished, and 81% of the Gaza fishing sector has been permanently destroyed.”

‘Crime of ecocide’

Waste management and power facilities have been cut or interrupted.

“Deliberate damage to Gaza’s natural resources and environment is considered a ‘crime of ecocide’.

As a result, 100% of the population is reliant on food aid to survive and is subject to acute malnutrition, extreme hunger, and infectious diseases.

That could cut a horrifying swathe through the survivors’ ranks if conditions get even slightly worse.

But, still, the wonderful “international community” won’t declare an official famine. Standards say famine exists when a population finds itself entering stage 5 (Catastrophe) after three indicators have reached the following thresholds: Famine is present when at least 20% of the population is affected, with about one out of three children being acutely malnourished and two people dying per day for every 10,000 inhabitants due to outright starvation or to the interaction of malnutrition and disease.

“All three conditions of famine existed in various pockets of Gaza since the first 100 days of the war. Now it is in the entire Gaza,” Elver notes.

However, only government and top UN officials can make a formal declaration, “which requires a complex bureaucratic process”.

A famine diet

“Despite all three conditions of famine that existed in parts of Gaza since the first 100 days of the war, in Gaza, a declaration of famine was even more difficult than in other cases due to Israel’s calculated tactics throughout the war to block humanitarian aid, even when conditions of starvation threatened to reach the threshold indicator. Israel is well aware that the crime of starvation is occurring in Gaza. A declaration of famine would provide convincing evidence to justify the pursuit of accountability.

Elver concludes: “Now, Gaza is being subjected to a famine diet that helps calculate the durability and resilience of human life without any food! It would have been possible to stop such a human catastrophe if there were a global political will, solidarity to protect vulnerable civilians and a binding convention giving states and the international community clear legal mandates to prevent famine.”

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