This collective punishment of Gazans is itself constitutes a war crime. They were utterly unprotected, squeezed in a small, crowded place with nowhere to go, no safe place to shelter, no food, no clean water, bakeries, hospitals, UN Buildings and schools were being constantly bombed.

The death toll is over 24,000, and  about half of Gaza’s 2.2 million people are children. As of early January 11, 2024 over 10,000 Palestinian children have been killed in Gaza, thousands remain missing, and more are are injured. It is estimated that one Palestinian child is killed every 15 minutes. Young children that are still alive, between 0 to 2 unable to survive lengthy periods of hunger are suffering the most.

Since October 7, more than 85% of the population in Gaza have been  forcefully removed from the North to the South, further back and forth. The massive distraction of every basic necessities created irreversible humanitarian catastrophe.  The Secretary General of the UN, Antonio Guterres calls it: “humanities’ catastrophe, not humanitarian catastrophe” making a point that international community failed gravely failed to stop the Israeli atrocity.  Gazans live  on tents, partly destroyed school buildings, or on streets without any shelter in the cold and wet weather. When rain arrived, broken sewage canals spilled over streets and floors of buildings. A life threatening water borne infectious diseaases started taking toll on children and elderly. Even before the war,  Access to water was very limited in Gaza, now it severely constranied, as only one aquifer is functioning. Peoples are surviving less than 2 liters per person per day, falling short by 15 liters of the basic survival level water requirement as per the Sphere Standards.

One of the Gaza residents explaining their conditions as: “If we don’t die from bombing, for sure, we will die from starvation, or diseases.” In late November, a spokesperson for the World Health Organization, repeated the same dire conditions: “Without urgent action to repair the Gaza Strip’s rapidly collapsing health system, more people would soon die from diseases than from Israel’s bombings. There are no medicines, no vaccination activities, no access to safe water and hygiene and no food. The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) reported on December 6 that 9 out of 10 households in Northern Gaza and 2 out of 3 households in Southern Gaza had spent at least one full day and night without food.

WGN News Video: “UN agency chiefs say Gaza needs more aid to arrive faster, warning of famine and disease”

”The most recent report of the WHO show that humanitarian crisis unfolds in Gaza an umprecendented 93 % population is now grappling with crisis level hunger characterized by insufficient food and alarming rates of malnutrition and dire consequences predicted for the health of the population, especially among vulnerable groups such as children, pregnant and breatsfeeding women, and the elderly. The recent estimates from the Integrated Food Security Face Classification (IPC) reveals that the risk of famine loom larger each day, underscoring the urgent need for immeditae intervention. The WHO staff reports a heartbreaking scenario that people come to hospital not for the medicine but hoping for food.  Ironically in the digital age, we are watching daily the horrors of the war in real-time in our living rooms.

Crime of Starvation

There are sufficient international law norms to prosecute Israel’s action in Gaza including war crimes, crimes against humanity, crimes of starvation and specifically the widely ratified Genocide Convention of 1948 are available to hold individuals accountable for the indiscriminately attacking civilians, bombing hospitals, and schools.

More specifically, Israel’e action clearly and squerlly constitutes a “crime of starvation,” by way of blocking access to food and clean water as a weapon of war, denying and blocking humanitarian aid, bombing bakeries, food distribution places, depriving the civilan population of objects indispensable to their survival, and even destroying Gaza’s agricultural land to dirt, proven by the Human Rights Watch satellite images.

In conflict zones, more civilians were killed because of hunger and diseases than by weapons in battle ground.  In Gaza, there is no battle ground, everywhere is battle ground, and as one of the Israeli military leaders said: “There is no innocent civilians in Gaza!” This statement itself carries an ‘intent’ to eliminate entire Gazans that consitutes crime of genocide conducted against entire population. 

Starvation kills people slowly. Besides immediate impact of the war on civilians while the hot war is still going on, there is also, deeper and longer impact of starvation on young children, pregnant women, elderly people, and people that already sick or have underlying conditions. It is a crime that its damages has a traumatizing impact on the generation to come. The UN World Health Organization (WHO) report shows that the impact of a short period of severe hunger (two or three weeks) on children between 0 to 2 years old have a long-lasting effect on physical, emotional and intellectual development. Even war ends today, the impact of destruction of Gaza’s food systems on current and generation to come will have a devastating impact on young generation. We might not to see immediately the importance of such a longer and deeper impact of severe malnutrition on vulnerable groups in Gaza War now, because current situation is dire and bloody. Therefore, there is an urgent need for immediate seize fire. it seems helpful to articulate the Israeli crime of starvation against Gaza people while it is happening now, with the hope of changing Israeli behavior, which could stop the devastation of this grave violation of human rights, and threat to life with lasting effect. Documenting of the starvation during the war is also vitally important to collect proof for the post conflict judication. 

Plenty of crime, but no remedy

Although since the begining of the war, international law principles were mentioned by all parties, it is rather confusing for non-legal experts to grasp it, and evaluate effectiveness. There are various legal remedies to account the perpetretors in case of severe human righst violations, and protection of civialns during the war.  In ideal world, international humanitarian law is designed to regulate war, protect civilians, stop war crimes. International human righst law obliges states protect peoples livelihood, such as right to food, housing, health and education, in times of peace and war. As an occupying power, Israel is obligated to respect, protect, and fulfill all peoples’ rights who live under the occupation. International criminal law prosecute and punish perpetrators of war crimes, and grave violations of human rights through the judicial institutions. Nevertheless we are not living in a world that all these rules properly and indiscriminately implemented, and perpetretors were punished.

As Palestinian legal scholar, and human righst activist Noura Erakat said in an inerview that:  “there is plenty of crimes is unfording in Palestine, especially the crime of apartheid: a sustained 75 years of settler colonial removal, 56 years of occupation, and 16 years of siege. Apartheit is and will continue to be, the geratest crime against humanity.” But the reality is these criminal allegations in the absence of the political will not allow pursue the remedy. Since the Gaza conflict started, the UN Security Council was not able to have a resolution of seize fire to avoid humanitarian catastrophe this one-sided, disproportionate, illegal reoccupation and unfolding genocide of the 21^st century because of the US veto power. Moreover, the US and the UK should be accountable along the Israel in these crimes by providing weapons, intelligence, and funding around $3.6 billion a year.  However, all these international law remedies just a distant dream not a remedy, despite majority of the world is sided with Palestine.

In concluding, starvation and famine are large-scale violations of the right to food that can adversely affect entire societies while at the same time severely harming individuals and their families. Considering the current condition to slash toward to famine in Gaza, there is a need for a global binding convention that gives States and international community clear legal mandates to prevent famine. Formal recognition of famine as a crime will impede the tendency of Governments “to hide behind the curtain of necessity of military operation, self-defense, or state sovereignty to use hunger as a genocidal weapon.”[1]

[1] The report of the UNSR on Right to Food, Mrs Hilal Elver to 72 session of the UN General Assembly, A/72/188, 21, July 2017, p.22