After more than 100 days of war and Israeli siege, every single person in Gaza is hungry, and a quarter of the population—or around 500,000 people—is starving, UN experts warned [12] on Jan. 16. The aid response is falling short of what is needed to prevent a deadly combination of hunger, malnutrition, and disease, four UN agencies said [13], calling for a "fundamental step change in the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza." Without it, deaths from starvation [14] and disease [15] could soon surpass the already staggering toll from bombardment and combat, which has reached nearly 25,000 [16] people, according to health authorities in Gaza.
UN aid officials said [18] there is still time to keep famine at bay, but that would require Israel to: allow more aid trucks to enter Gaza; provide humanitarian workers more freedom of movement; give safety guarantees to people seeking and distributing aid; and lift its total siege to allow commercial goods into the enclave. "This isn't just a question whereby setting up some soup kitchens and some mobile clinics will stop this humanitarian emergency," famine expert Alex de Waal told The New Humanitarian [19] in an interview. "No matter how much aid is provided, if the destruction of objects indispensable to survival continues, the risk of famine will continue."
The deliberate starvation of civilians is a war crime [20], and the allegation that Israel is creating the risk of death from starvation in Gaza is central to the case [21] being brought by South Africa at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Israel of genocide.
From The New Humanitarian [22], Jan. 19.
See our last report on genocide accusations [23] against Israel.
