Michael Hager
CounterPunch / August 19, 2024
Daily reports of Palestinians killed in Gaza focus on deaths from Israeli bombs and missiles, now exceeding 40,000. Yet the famine stalking the Strip today threatens the lives of many times that number. Already children in North Gaza are dying of malnutrition. Like canaries in coal mines, they signal mass starvation to come. Sadly, the major media has largely ignored the accelerating famine conditions in Gaza.
On June 25, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Report (IPC) on Gaza found that “96% of the population is facing acute food insecurity at crisis level (Category 3) or higher, with almost half a million people in catastrophic (Category 5) conditions.” Partnering with experts from U.N. agencies, governments and major aid groups, the IPC applies scientific standards to evaluate food insecurity levels. The IPC observed that “many in Gaza go entire days and nights without eating.” The World Food Program said the IPC report “paints a stark picture of ongoing hunger.”
On October 9, 2023, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals….” On August 6, CNN quoted Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who said in a speech that “it may be just and moral” to starve 2 million Gaza residents until Israeli hostages are returned. While some, but grossly inadequate, amounts of food aid continue to enter Gaza, the continuing IDF attacks in north, central, and south regions restrict distribution efforts.
The Genocide Convention of 1948 includes as a genocidal act “Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” This would seem to include the use of mass starvation as a war tactic, already recognized as a war crime. In January, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), responding to South African allegations that Israel has used starvation as a war tactic, found that the use of starvation against Gazans is a “plausible” violation of the Genocide Convention.
Meanwhile, Palestinians in Gaza are increasingly falling ill and dying from diseases that are abetted by malnutrition, a lack of clean water, unsanitary conditions, repeated evacuations and untreated war injuries. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance reported in June that 67% of Gaza’s water and sanitation system has now been destroyed. On July 24 The New York Times reported that hepatitis B has infected more than 100,000 Gazans and that other diseases, including polio, are now threatening fragile civilians.
As we saw with the 1981 Irish hunger strikers, proper health conditions and adequate hydration can delay death by starvation to sixty or more days. In Gaza people who are severely weakened by malnutrition, will likely die much earlier from disease or exhaustion. Starvation begins with a skipped meal, followed by a prolonged period without food. The third and fatal stage occurs when all stored fats have been depleted and the body turns to muscle and bones as sources of energy.
Alex de Waal, a professor and head of the World Peace Foundation at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, is a leading scholar of famine. His 2018 book entitled Mass Starvation, The History and Future of Famine, makes two important points: (1) that modern famines are caused by a political decision (not crop failure) which he terms “famine crime;” and (2) that the best way to fight famine is to combat the political leaders who made the decision to starve a population. In requesting arrest warrants against the Israeli Prime Minister and Defense Minister, the International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor cited among the alleged war crimes “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.” According to de Waal, “A first-degree famine crime is committed by someone determined to exterminate a population through famine.” He notes that “mass atrocities” of famine “are closely associated with war, and ending war goes far in reducing” the starvation of civilians. He calls for tougher laws to criminalize mass starvation.
In Gaza today, it seems likely that famine will continue to spread and kill until there is a ceasefire. Given current political realities in Israel, a ceasefire is unlikely until the United States halts its recurring transfers of lethal weapons to the IDF.
Michael Hageris cofounder and former Director General, International Development Law Organization – Rome
