Human Rights Watch said yesterday, Monday, that the Israeli government is using starvation of civilians as a method of war in the occupied Gaza Strip, which constitutes a war crime.
The human rights organization considered that the Israeli occupation army prevented the delivery of water, food, and fuel, while deliberately obstructing humanitarian aid, apparently bulldozing agricultural areas, and depriving the civilian population of materials indispensable for their survival.
It indicated that Israeli officials, including Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, and Energy Minister Israel Katz, made public statements in which they expressed their intention to deprive civilians in Gaza of food, water, and fuel, noting that these statements were reflected in the military operations carried out by them. Israeli forces.
This comes while other Israeli officials have publicly stated that humanitarian aid to Gaza will be conditional on either the release of detainees held by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), or the destruction of the movement.
Politics and deprivation
Omar Shaker, director of Israel and Palestine affairs at Human Rights Watch, said, “For more than two months, Israel has been depriving the people of Gaza of food and water, a policy that senior Israeli officials have urged or supported and reflects an intention to starve civilians as a method of war.”
Omar Shaker called on world leaders to raise their voices against this abhorrent war crime, “with devastating effects on the people of Gaza.” Displaced people from the Gaza Strip interviewed by Human Rights Watch described the severe difficulties they face in securing basic necessities.
A man leaving northern Gaza said, “We had no food, no electricity, no internet, nothing at all. We don’t know how we survived.”
In southern Gaza, interviewees described scarcity of potable water, food shortages that led to empty stores and long queues, and exorbitant prices, with a father of two children saying, “You have to constantly search for the things needed to survive.”
On December 6, the United Nations World Food Program reported that 9 out of every 10 families in northern Gaza and two out of every three families in southern Gaza spent at least a full day and a full night without food.
Israeli military operations in Gaza also had a devastating impact on its agricultural sector. According to Oxfam, due to ongoing bombing, coupled with fuel and water shortages, and the displacement of more than 1.6 million people into southern Gaza, agriculture has become almost impossible.
For the 74th day in a row, the Israeli army is waging a devastating war on Gaza, which as of yesterday, Monday, has left 19,453 Palestinians dead, in addition to 52,286 wounded, most of them children and women, massive destruction of infrastructure, and an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, according to Palestinian and UN sources.