In the devastated Gaza Strip, suffering goes far beyond the relentless roar of bombings and Israeli air raids. Another war is raging—quieter but equally ruthless: a war of starvation, systematic and deadly.
“What is happening in Gaza is far more than a food crisis or a mere shortage of supplies. We are witnessing a grim chapter in the history of international crimes, where the Israeli occupation is weaponizing hunger as a tool of domination, aiming to subjugate an entire population and force them into exile, in blatant violation of international humanitarian law,” said Maître Rachid Mesli, director of Alkarama.
For years, over two million people have lived under a suffocating siege, during which food and medicine have become scarce commodities, and clean drinking water has turned into a distant dream. The blockade has intensified in recent months. As survival chances dwindle, the Israeli occupying forces continue to impose severe restrictions on humanitarian aid, disregarding all international norms and laws.
At the beginning of July, several Gaza hospitals reported the deaths of infants suffering from severe malnutrition, according to local medical sources corroborated by United Nations reports. In a harrowing display of the disaster’s scale, parents have been forced to grind wild herbs to feed their children, while queues for a piece of bread have turned into shooting zones for occupation soldiers.
In response to the worsening crisis, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, through Commissioner Volker Türk, issued a solemn warning: maintaining the blockade on food aid risks constituting “the use of starvation as a method of warfare,” a crime strictly prohibited under international law.
A declared genocide
Accusations against Israel now go beyond excessive use of force, reaching a far graver charge: genocide. In November 2024, a UN Special Committee concluded that “the methods used by Israel in its aggression against Gaza display the characteristics of genocide, including a policy of systematic starvation.”
In an unprecedented legal move, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take immediate measures to prevent famine, recognizing that the situation in Gaza surpasses a traditional blockade and constitutes some of the gravest international crimes.
On July 12, 2025, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution demanding an immediate end to the use of hunger as a weapon of war, affirming that depriving civilians of essential needs is a flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian principles.
Yet this resolution has brought no changes on the ground. On the contrary, reports from humanitarian organizations indicate that Israel has tightened restrictions on aid trucks entering northern Gaza, where thousands survive on crumbs of bread and contaminated water.
Meanwhile, Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, declared: “What is happening in Gaza is not merely a humanitarian crisis but a systematic campaign of extermination that must stop immediately.”
Despite these calls and UN reports, Israel continues its daily crimes relentlessly, and the specter of hunger keeps spreading, weighing heavily on the bodies of children and women amid the silence of many influential capitals.
One haunting question remains: how long must lives be counted before the international community awakens? How many massacres must occur before justice is finally served?