Tag: starvation

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Starvation in Gaza by Alex de Waal

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The blockade is also a cordon sanitaire – we haven’t seen communicable diseases such as cholera, which are common in other famines, entering Gaza. And because vaccination rates were so high before 7 October, there have been no outbreaks of potential killers such as measles. In almost every other famine on record, communicable diseases are the big killers. Gaza is an anomaly, a laboratory in which we will discover how much nutritional stress a population can withstand before succumbing en masse.

… The authors wrote of a possible ‘scenario of protracted and large-scale military operations and continuation of the humanitarian and commercial blockade … under this reasonable worst case scenario, food insecurity, acute malnutrition and mortality would surpass the IPC Phase 5 (Famine) thresholds.’ They could have stated the matter more simply. Mass death through starvation is the certain outcome of Israel’s continued blockade and ongoing military campaign. The only question is when.

Continue reading at https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/may/starvation-in-gaza

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Israel’s Siege Now Blocks 83% of Food Aid Reaching Gaza, New Data Reveals by Save the Children and others

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

  2. A record low average of 69 aid trucks per day entered Gaza… people in Gaza have gone from having an average of two meals a day to just one meal every other day. An estimated 50,000 children aged between 6-59 months urgently require treatment for malnutrition by the end of the year…. In August more than 1 million people did not receive any food rations in southern and central Gaza… Aid, which is urgently required for 2.2 million people at risk of dying in the coming weeks and months, should never be politicised.

Continue reading at https://www.savethechildren.net/news/israel-s-siege-now-blocks-83-food-aid-reaching-gaza-new-data-reveals

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Stone and Seed: Mira Mattar on starvation as a tool of genocide in Gaza on Vittles Magazine

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  2. This ostensible distinction between the active – and therefore punishable – ‘combatant’ and the passive – and therefore innocent – ‘civilian’ has been exploited time and time again by imperial powers to undermine anti-colonial resistance efforts. And the contemporary Zionist state continues to rely upon this logic. When every civilian can be repositioned as a potential combatant and so become a ‘human shield’, or when Hamas are allegedly hiding under hospitals, or within neonatal incubators – violence against the population as a whole is legitimised. The enemy is everyone, everything, everywhere, all the time. Starvation caused by the destruction of objects necessary to life (bakeries, agricultural lands, mills, sewage systems, electricity, schools, homes, roads) – and the subsequent withholding of aid – then becomes merely the tragic ‘humanitarian’ consequence of a legal and necessary military objective, instead of an intentionally genocidal endeavour.

Continue reading at https://www.vittlesmagazine.com/p/stone-and-seed

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Starvation, Genocide, and the Palestinian People’s Food Sovereignty with Michael Fakhri on Jadaliyya

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  1. “This focus on words and framing is not a semantic exercise. how we name horror determines how we overcome that horror. The stakes are very high over how we name and understand Israel’s horrors against the Palestinian people. And I’ll conclude with how the response to genocide and starvation is addressing the Palestinian people’s food sovereignty. I’ll quickly explain what food sovereignty means… and what it means for the Palestinian people, from my experiences.
  3. So to begin with genocide; in the early days of this war, on October 15th, because of the work of many people in this room, over 400 scholars- in the fields of international law, genocide studies, Holocaust studies- raised the alarm that Israel is probably committing genocide in Gaza. Soon after, on October 19th, several Special Reporters followed suit, calling for the prevention of genocide… we were the first and probably only voices within the UN system framing the issue as a matter of genocide…
  5. And I think those of us that saw it so early, amongst the Special Reporters, were able to do so for a couple of reasons: first, I think our mandates allowed us to see it… it’s telling who were the first mandate holders that raised the alarm: Food, water, housing, and health… There’s something really core about those ideas- those mandates. These are the mandates which are the essentials of life. We were also supported by the Mandate holders that address violence against women. and internally displaced people, and of course the mandate holder addressing occupied Palestinian territories.
  7. The second reason I think we were able to see it so quickly is an understanding of geography and history. Those of us who know that this did not start on October 7th, or in Gaza, could see genocide for what it was. We understood that this was a case of settler colonialism, of creating 75 years of apartheid, 56 years of belligerent occupation of Palestinian territory, and 16 years of a siege against Gaza.
  9. And the third reason those of us that were able to see it so quickly, I think, was from experience. More people than you think have experienced genocide. And what I mean by that is genocide does not affect just those people that were killed. Genocide creates a social trauma that overwhelms time and space. Genocide resonates across an entire region and throughout multiple Generations, sometimes reproducing and magnifying hate… Genocidal tendencies are more common than is publicly discussed. That’s a lot of people. That’s why millions of people immediately took to the streets all over the world in October, not only calling for a ceasefire, but to an end of the genocide. Nine months later, I don’t need to walk through why this is a genocide. The degree of Carnage against the Palestinian people, simply because they are Palestinian, is getting harder and harder to even describe. When the dust settles, those of us who have not been in Gaza, may fully realize the horror and Carnage and the degree of violence that is possible today. So I’m not going to spend time arguing that this this is genocide, the onus is on them.”

Continue listening at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0a-0YPfBpo

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UN experts declare famine has spread throughout Gaza strip by Michael Fakhri and others

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  1. GENEVA (9 July 2024) – The recent deaths of more Palestinian children due to hunger and malnutrition leaves no doubt that famine has spread across the entire Gaza strip, a group of independent experts* said today.

… “We declare that Israel’s intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people is a form of genocidal violence and has resulted in famine across all of Gaza. We call upon the international community to prioritise the delivery of humanitarian aid by land by any means necessary, end Israel’s siege, and establish a ceasefire.”

Continue reading at https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/07/un-experts-declare-famine-has-spread-throughout-gaza-strip

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Israel’s starvation policy in Gaza is forcing people to eat tree leaves by Tareq S. Hajjaj

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  1. Ahmad Abdulrahim, 38, strolled the remains of the markets in Gaza City with 150 Shekels in his pocket, the amount of money he used to feed his family of five for a week before the genocide. Today, that amount can hardly buy a single meal.
  2. … “I’m starting to deal with my kids as adults,” he said. “I’m telling them this is war, and our enemy wants us to starve. I’m telling them that we should be thankful that we have been able to survive so far. I promise them that when this war ends, I will bring them whatever they want.”

Continue reading at https://mondoweiss.net/2024/07/israels-starvation-policy-in-gaza-is-forcing-people-to-eat-tree-leaves/

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Urgent Call to Declare Gaza a Famine-Stricken Area on Bisan Center for Research & Development

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  1. We the undersigned Civil Society Organizations and Coalitions, considering the ongoing genocide in Gaza for more than seven months, the people of Gaza are suffering from severe food shortages, a continuous decline in nutrition levels, widespread malnutrition among children, and increased mortality rates due to diseases caused by hunger and malnutrition, along with the difficulty of accessing medical and healthcare services… call on the United Nations and the Palestinian Authority to immediately declare Gaza a famine-stricken area due to famine, environmental pollution, and the spread of diseases. The United Nations and the Palestinian Authority must adopt this declaration and coordinate global and local efforts in partnership with Palestinian civil society to develop an immediate plan to address these impacts, elevate emergency relief levels for citizens in the sector, and push toward accountability and prosecution of the occupation for committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Continue reading at https://www.bisan.org/2024/05/urgent-call-to-declare-gaza-a-famine-stricken-area/

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Gaza: Halt the war now to save children from dying of imminent famine by UN Committee on the Rights of the Child

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  • Deliberate actions such as blocking and restricting humanitarian aid appear to be calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinian children, and we refer in this regard to the interim ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on 26 January 2024, which found some rights claims by South Africa under the Genocide Convention to be “plausible”. 
  • We draw attention to the ICJ’s order to Israel to “take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts within the scope of article II of the Convention”, including killing members of the group; to “prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide”; and to “enable the provision of… humanitarian assistance”. 

Continue reading at https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/03/gaza-halt-war-now-save-children-dying-imminent-famine-un-committee-warns

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Famine imminent in northern Gaza, new report warns (World Food Program, March 2024)

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

  • Famine is imminent in the northern part of the Gaza Strip and the entire population of Gaza is facing crisis levels of food insecurity or worse, according to the new Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report released today.

Overall, the new report shows that 1.1 million people in Gaza – half of the population – have completely exhausted their food supplies and coping capacities and are struggling with catastrophic hunger (IPC Phase 5) and starvation. This is the highest number of people ever recorded as facing catastrophic hunger by the IPC system, and double the number in IPC Phase 5 just three months ago.

“People in Gaza are starving to death right now. The speed at which this man-made hunger and malnutrition crisis has ripped through Gaza is terrifying,” said WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain. “There is a very small window left to prevent an outright famine and to do that we need immediate and full access to the north. If we wait until famine has been declared, it’s too late. Thousands more will be dead.”

Continue reading at https://www.wfp.org/news/famine-imminent-northern-gaza-new-report-warns

Full IPC report can be accessed here https://www.ipcinfo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ipcinfo/docs/IPC_Gaza_Strip_Acute_Food_Insecurity_Feb_July2024_Special_Brief.pdf