Summary:

• Human Rights Watch accuses the Israeli government of using starvation as a method of warfare in the occupied Gaza Strip, labeling it a war crime, as Israeli forces allegedly block the delivery of essential supplies and impede humanitarian assistance, leading to severe hardships for the civilian population, with the United Nations World Food Programme reporting widespread food deprivation in northern and southern Gaza.

“The Israeli government is using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare in the occupied Gaza Strip, which is a war crime,” the New York-based group charged in a report.

“Israeli forces are deliberately blocking the delivery of water, food and fuel, while wilfully impeding humanitarian assistance, apparently razing agricultural areas, and depriving the civilian population of objects indispensable to their survival,” it added.

“For over two months, Israel has been depriving Gaza’s population of food and water, a policy spurred on or endorsed by high-ranking Israeli officials and reflecting an intent to starve civilians as a method of warfare,” WAFA news agency quoted Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch.

“World leaders should be speaking out against this abhorrent war crime, which has devastating effects on Gaza’s population.”

HRW interviewed 11 displaced Palestinians in Gaza between 24 November 4 and December. They described their profound hardships in securing basic necessities. “We had no food, no electricity, no internet, nothing at all,” said one man who had left northern Gaza. “We don’t know how we survived.”

The United Nations World Food Programme (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.