Threatening famine in Gaza shows resurgence of civilian sieges in warfare
The number of people facing possible famine in the Gaza Strip in the coming weeks is the largest share of the population at risk of famine since a United Nations-affiliated panel established the current global food insecurity assessment two decades ago.
Following Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel on October 7, Israel responded with air and ground strikes and a lockdown of the area, leaving the 2.2 million people living there without adequate food, water and supplies. The UN has concluded that without significant intervention, Gaza could reach famine levels as early as early February.
Limited amounts of food and other aid enter Gaza from Israel and Egypt through border points with strict inspections; the ongoing bombings and ground fighting make the distribution of that aid extremely difficult.
Famine scholars say it has been generations since the world has seen this level of food deprivation in warfare.
“The accuracy, scale and speed of the destruction of the structures necessary for survival, and the maintenance of the siege, exceeds any other case of man-made famine in the last 75 years,” said Alex de Waal, a expert on humanitarian crises and international law at Tufts University, who wrote “Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine.”
The situation in Gaza is the latest in a series of recent crises that have reversed progress in the fight against famine. Mass starvation deaths declined steadily from the 1980s well into the 21st century. But over the past seven years, food crises related to conflict (such as those in Yemen, Syria and Ethiopia’s Tigray region) and crises arising from environmental conditions and climate change (such as in Somalia) have led to the loss of more than a million lives .
Gaza is unique, experts say, because the people living there are confined to the area and have no way to look for food elsewhere.
Israel has strongly denied accusations that it is responsible for the food shortage in Gaza.
“There is enough food in Gaza,” Colonel Elad Goren, the head of the Israeli agency that oversees policy for the Palestinian territories, known as COGAT, said at a recent news briefing.
“Israel has not and will not prevent the provision of humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza who are not part of the terror,” he continued. “We have not been denied any shipments of food, water, medical supplies or shelter materials.”
If Gazans do not have access to food, Colonel Goren said, it is because of the failure of humanitarian organizations.
“The organizations urgently need to increase their ability to receive and distribute the aid,” he said. “This includes better work processes, more facilities and trucks. There is also a need for additional manpower.”
The World Food Program said that before the war, about 500 trucks a day were transporting supplies, including food, to Gaza, which has been under a partial blockade by Israel and Egypt since Hamas took power there in 2007. Last week, the organization said that on average, 127 trucks were allowed to pass through the main Israeli checkpoint every day. Distributing that limited aid is virtually impossible because of the destruction of communications, fuel shortages and continued Israeli bombing, the World Food Program and other agencies say.
“Our staff doesn’t feel safe doing the distributions, and people don’t feel safe going to the distributions,” said Shaza Moghraby, a spokeswoman for the program. “They are lining up for food and praying that they will not be bombed.”
The handful of entry points operate intermittently due to bombing, Ms. Moghraby said, and the Israeli military’s inspection and bureaucratic process means only a limited number of aid deliveries are approved each day.
“The need is now exponentially greater as people depend solely on humanitarian aid for their survival,” said Juliette Touma, spokeswoman for UNRWA, the organization that supports Gaza.
The assessment of the risk of famine in Gaza was made by thirty experts from nineteen organizations, convened by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The initiative, the Integrated phase classification of food securitysimultaneously controls access to food in about 50 places around the world.
In crisis areas, it looks at three criteria: whether 30 percent of children are seriously malnourished or exhausted; if the mortality rate is higher than double the normal level; or if 20 percent of the population has a ‘catastrophic’ lack of food. If any of these thresholds are exceeded, the panel will convene a so-called Famine Review Committee to determine the likelihood of a famine.
Because ‘the F-word’ is so controversial, says Cormac Ó Gráda, famine historian and professor at University College Dublin, the hope is that declaring a famine will lead to significant interventions – and even a declaration of an immediate risk of famine can propel action.
“If there is a famine, someone is to blame – and if you can get an international body, which is seen as scientific and objective, to admit that there is a famine, then it is very, very serious for the people it is believed that they are hungry. caused the famine,” said Professor Ó Gráda. “So the Israelis would certainly not want the UN or someone like the UN to declare that there is a famine in Gaza.”
Starving civilians was a military tactic in World War II, when more than three million Soviets died in the Nazi Hunger Plan and when the U.S. Navy and Air Force waged a campaign officially called Operation Starvation that blocked food supplies to Japan. From 1958 to 1961, at least 25 million people died in the Great Leap Forward-related famine in China.
The famines in Nigeria during the civil war in the late 1960s; in Sarajevo during the Bosnian war in the early 1990s; in the Syrian civil war that started thirteen years ago; and in Ethiopia since 2020 are comparable to Gaza as sieges of the civilian population during conflicts, Professor de Waal said.
He and other experts argued that whatever the reasons given, the underlying cause reflected conscious choices made by those with power.
“Famine is normally caused by people, by the decisions of political elites,” says Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann, an international human rights scholar and author of “State Food Crimes.” Reports from Gaza indicate a deliberate decision in Israel to restrict food supplies, she said.
“It’s a political decision or a military decision,” she said, but added: “I am willing to accept that there may be other factors involved, such as Hamas’s corruption, Hamas’s diversion of food, and so on.”
While the hunger crises in regions such as South Sudan and Tigray have unfolded with little media attention, Gaza has been under intense international surveillance. Statements made by members of the Israeli government early in the war about its intention to deprive the entire population of Gaza of food have attracted the attention of human rights prosecutors.
This was said by Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s Minister of National Security in a message on X on October 17: “As long as Hamas does not release the hostages in its own hands, the only thing entering Gaza is hundreds of tons of explosives from the air force, and not a shred of humanitarian aid.”
The debate over the current conditions in Gaza – whether they are the result of a deliberate strategy to attack civilians or an unintended and unavoidable consequence of Israel’s attack on Hamas – shows why it is a challenge to address this through international law to deal with.
The ban on starving civilians as a method of war was incorporated into international law in 1977, with an additional protocol to the Geneva Convention.
In 1998, the Statute of Rome created the International Criminal Court and made it a war crime to use starving civilians as a military tactic in international conflicts. The crime is described as intended to deprive a civilian population of food, as well as water, medicine and shelter. The United States and Israel were two of seven countries that voted against the court’s creation.
There have been no prosecutions in the International Court of Justice for famine because most man-made famines since then have occurred within national borders.
In 2018, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2417which condemned the use of starvation in conflict and said cases where armed conflict threatened to create widespread food insecurity should be referred to the Security Council “swiftly”.
However, the Security Council has yet to consider man-made famines: the allies of the countries accused of causing them have acted consistently to keep the issue out of the debate. The United States repeatedly criticized the Syrian government at the Security Council over the use of famine, but it lasted a milder tone when its allies Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates blockaded Yemen, causing widespread hunger.
Experts say it is difficult to apply international justice to famines because they are often caused by blockades in conflict situations, while the blocking party can claim it must prevent livelihoods from reaching an insurgent or terrorist group. Since the September 11 attacks, the idea that the need to act against terrorists takes priority over the protection of civilians has often dominated international relations, Professor De Waal said.
Catriona Murdoch, a famine legal expert at the advocacy group Global Rights Compliance, said the question of whether there is deliberate intent to deprive a civilian population of food and the other “objects indispensable for survival” ‘ described in the UN resolution, underlies the question of whether a civilian population The food crisis is a potential crime against humanity. It is not necessary for there to be a famine for a criminal offense to be prosecuted, she said, if intent is proven.
International judicial organizations can now collect evidence from Gaza for consideration in a possible prosecution later, when international institutions are more functional.
“It takes years for these types of studies to bear fruit,” Ms Murdoch said.
Adam Sella contributed reporting from Tel Aviv.