Israel's Starvation Campaign

 

...Al Jazerra reports that as of March 27^th, “27 people – 23 of them children – have starved to death as a result of what international bodies say is Israel’s use of hunger as a weapon of war.”

 

Israel’s starvation campaign began on October 9, 2023, when Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced, “We are fighting human animals.” He added, “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed.” Energy Minister Israel Katz issued an order “to immediately cut the water supply to Gaza.”

 

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) reports that between 24 November 24^th and December 7, 2023, over 90 percent of the population in the Gaza Strip was estimated to face high levels of acute food insecurity, classified in IPC Phase 3 or above (Crisis or worse).

 

Going further, it notes that over 40 percent of the population (939,000 people) were in Emergency (IPC Phase 4) and over 15 percent (378,000 people) were in Catastrophe (IPC Phase 5).

 

It projected that between December 8, 2023, and February 7, 2024, “the entire population in the Gaza Strip (about 2.2 million people) is classified in IPC Phase 3 or above (Crisis or worse). This is the highest share of people facing high levels of acute food insecurity that the IPC initiative has ever classified for any given area or country.”

 

In December 2023, Human Rights Watch (HRW) stated that “the Israeli government is using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare in the occupied Gaza Strip, which is a war crime.”  It added, “Israeli forces are deliberately blocking the delivery of water, food, and fuel, while willfully impeding humanitarian assistance, apparently razing agricultural areas, and depriving the civilian population of objects indispensable to their survival.”

 

In the wake of Hamas’s vicious attack of October 7, 2023, Israel’s political leadership called for all-out war.  

 

The national security chief, Tzachi Hanegbi, said that Israel could no longer accept Hamas as a “sovereign entity in the Gaza Strip.” Going further he added, “Complete victory will be the only possible outcome of this battle. … We will not only collapse Hamas military and governmental capabilities but ensure that they will not be able to revive themselves afterward.” Prime Minster Netanyahu also insisted, “Destroying Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, and bringing the captives back home.”

 

After six months of battle, employing the full force of territorial occupation, ethnic cleansing, systematic destruction, targeted assassinations and even starvation, the Israeli military and government has failed to secure “victory” or bring the hostages home.  One can only how long Israel’s failed effort will continue.

 

-CounterPunch

David Rosen is the author of Sex, Sin & Subversion:  The Transformation of 1950s New York’s Forbidden into America’s New Normal (Skyhorse, 2015).  He can be reached at drosennyc@verizon.net; check out www.DavidRosenWrites.com.