Israel’s deliberate policy of starvation in Gaza has created the worst-case scenario experts and humanitarian agencies have been warning about for more than a year and a half:
The
“worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza
Strip,” the leading international authority on food crises said in a new
alert Tuesday, predicting “widespread death” without immediate action.
The famine in Gaza is entirely man-made.
Like other atrocity famines, it is the result of deliberate policy
choices. The Israeli government has been deliberately starving the
people of Gaza for the better part of two years. As more than 100 aid
groups said
in a joint statement, “the Israeli government’s siege starves the
people of Gaza.” Since the start of the war in October 2023, the Israeli
government has been inflicting collective punishment on the civilian
population by using starvation as a weapon, devastating Gaza’s civilian
infrastructure, and destroying the health care system.
The
catastrophe engulfing the people of Gaza was foreseen long ago. Thanks
to Washington’s indulgence and the world’s indifference, the most
preventable famine in the world has not been prevented. The only
question now is whether it will be halted and reversed.
The Financial Times reports:
The
warning came as the World Food Programme (WFP) said Israeli
restrictions continued to prevent the UN from moving enough food to
stave off “catastrophic human suffering” among the strip’s 2mn people.
There were reports last week of a wave of deaths from starvation. Even Donald Trump has acknowledged
that there is “real starvation” in Gaza, but there is so far no sign
that the administration is prepared to apply any pressure on the Israeli
government to halt their policy of starvation. Whenver there is a
public outcry about starvation, the Israeli government will allow
a slight increase in aid deliveries to make it look as if they are
responding to the crisis, but this is a cynical stunt aimed at reducing
international pressure. The minimal amounts allowed in cannot begin to
provide for the needs of the population, and they were never meant to do
that.
Nick Maynard, a volunteer surgeon who has been serving in Gaza, described the effects of malnutrition on his patients:
The
malnutrition crisis has become catastrophic since my last visit. Every
day I watch patients deteriorate and die, not from their injuries, but
because they are too malnourished to survive surgery. The surgical
repairs that we carry out fall to pieces, patients get terrible
infections, then they die. It is happening repeatedly, and it is
heartbreaking to watch. Four babies have died in the last few weeks in
this hospital – not from bombs or bullets, but from starvation.
Families
and staff do their best to try to bring in what they can, but there
simply isn’t enough food available in Gaza. For infants, we have
virtually no baby formula. Children are being given 10% dextrose (sugar
water), which has no nutritional value, and often their mothers are too
malnourished to breastfeed. When an international colleague tried to
bring baby formula into Gaza, Israeli authorities confiscated it.
Sometimes there is mass starvation because existing food stocks become prohibitively expensive, but in Gaza “there is nothing to buy” because of the destructive restrictions imposed by the Israeli government.
Brief pauses and trickles of aid will not be good enough to remedy the situation. As Ahmad Alhendawi of Save the Children said
in a statement, “The stage of malnutrition and starvation many people
across Gaza are facing means one or even a few days of food aid will not
be enough to bring them back from the brink of death.” There needs to
be a sustained, massive relief effort, and that isn’t going to happen
until Israel lifts all restrictions.
It is not yet too late to stave off total disaster. Alex de Waal, the author of Mass Starvation, explained recently how Gaza is different from other recent man-made famines:
The humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza today is unique, however, in that the situation can be remedied overnight if Israel chooses to do so [bold
mine-DL]. Within an hour’s drive of the stricken communities there are
the United Nations and other aid organizations, with the resources,
skills, plans, networks, and so on, to stand up a comprehensive
humanitarian operation. If Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
were to decide that every child in Gaza should have breakfast tomorrow,
it could be done.
The use of starvation as a weapon against everyone in Gaza is more evidence
of the Israeli government’s genocidal intent. The government has
created these terrible conditions knowing what the consequences would
be. They have it within their power to prevent more deaths from
starvation, but they won’t do it unless they are compelled by outside
pressure.
Gaza
is the scene of many terrible crimes committed by the Israeli
government. The crime of starvation is the most appalling because it
attacks the entire population and kills the most vulnerable. We are
witnessing the slow-motion mass murder of an entire group of people. The
U.S. has the means to put a stop to it, but our government refuses to
act.