Famine in Gaza is part of the Israeli genocidal strategy
A Famine worsens every day in Gaza, where 100% of residents faced with high levels of food insecurity, according to the United Nations World Food Program. While international statements are linked but are not followed by concrete improvement, the media Palestine agency proposes to return to the challenges of this famine, orchestrated for months by Israel.
The Palestinian-Nés de Gaza starve in the deafening silence of the international community, while tons of food are wasted on the Egyptian side of the border while waiting for authorization to enter the enclave. Israeli troops and foreign mercenaries committed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) killed more than 900 Palestinian-Nés who sought aid in so-called humanitarian distribution ‘sites. According to the World Food Program (WFP), some 100,000 children and women need urgent malnutrition treatment; People die of hunger every day. And the worst still seems to come.
A famine built and deliberate
The threat of famine has been hovering since the start of the genocide in Gaza. The famine imposed in Gaza does not begin with October 7. Israeli authorities have used the blockade as a tool for weakening the population for years. In 2006, a meeting of the Israeli ministerial team responsible for reflecting on the consequences of the blockade already evoked the calculation as precise as cynical of the colonial authorities: “It is like an appointment with the dietitian. The Palestinians will lose weight properly but they will not die, “explained Dov Weissglas, an adviser to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
The idea was therefore to guarantee the Gazan population the vital minimum, no more, no less, “with the intention of avoiding a humanitarian crisis”. A government document had determined the distribution of 2,279 calories per day on average at each resident of Gaza. The defense ministry spokesman explained: “A mathematical formula was set up to identify food needs” with a number of trucks authorized to reach just the threshold of these needs.
“No electricity, no water, no food, no fuel,” said Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on October 9, 2023, while the full headquarters of the Gaza Strip was declared. This declaration, in which he described the Palestinian-nés as “human animals”, was also retained by numerous analysts as one of the first proofs of the genocidal intention of the Israeli military campaign in progress for 21 months.
During the months that followed, the Israeli headquarters took variable proportions according to media attention and international pressures. In addition to conditioning the entry of humanitarian aid to his good will, Israel has made the Palestinian-Nés de Gaza ever more dependent on this by systematically destroying agricultural infrastructure and factories which allowed the inhabitants a relative autonomy.
On numerous occasions, international actors such as Oxfam, the WFP and the UN alert on a dangerous situation. On July 9, 2024, no less than 11 experts mandated by the United Nations Human Rights Council launched a distress appeal concerning famine in Gaza.
“We declare that the intentional and targeted famine campaign led by Israel against the Palestinian people constitutes a form of genocidal violence and has resulted in famine throughout the Gaza Strip. We call on the international community to give priority to the delivery of humanitarian aid by land by all the necessary means, to end the Israeli headquarters and to establish a cease-fire, “said these experts in their press release.
“The worst scenario possible”
More than a year after this declaration, we lack superlatives to describe the severity of the situation. In March, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu imposed a total blockade on the entrance to food and aid in the Gaza Strip, which lasted until mid-May. Since then, the Israeli army has authorized only a tiny amount of aid to enter the Gaza Strip, while killing civilians who try to get these meager food rations.
“Every day, I go to the market, I walk for a long time and I walk, but I can’t find flour. And if I find it, the price is so high that I just can’t afford it, ”says Atta Deifallah, a Gaza resident who explains that he should support 11 people.
Charitable kitchens that were a rescue buoy for hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians closed Ahmed Abed, another displaced man, Al Jazeera told his hungry children. “There is nothing, no food or water. We don’t know how to take care of children. What to tell them when they and they ask to eat? »»
Since today’s dawn, July 22, 2025, four people have died of hunger or thirst in Gaza. Yesterday, two. The previous day, nineteen. The sinister statement of these deaths may still get worse, while the (PAM) says that a third of the population is now spending several days without eating due to the Israeli blockade. Among the most vulnerable, WFP indicates that 100,000 women and children suffer from severe malnutrition, the food supplies remaining extremely low and blocked humanitarian access.
The search for food itself has become dangerous: the UN today denounces more than 1000 cases of murders of civilians when they and they came to claim humanitarian aid. “As of July 21, we identified 1,054 people killed in Gaza when they were trying to get food; 766 of them were killed near the GHF sites (Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an opaque structure piloted by Israel with the logistical support of the United States since May 19) and 288 near the convoys of UN aid and other humanitarian organizations, “said the High Commission for Human Rights at AFP.
“This is the worst scenario possible, where people are deprived of what they need to survive,” said the UN special rapporteur on the right to food Michael Frakhis during an interview on Al Jazeera. “It is not only a question of deprivation of food, but also of water and health care … From a legal point of view, what we know with certainty is that it is a case of famine, which constitutes a crime of war. »»
The UN rapporteur recalls that the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants against Mr. Netanyahu and former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant in November for “crimes against humanity and war crimes committed at least between October 8 and May 2024”, accusations which are partly linked to the instrumentalization of famine. Mandates “create a legal obligation: countries must act to end famine,” he concludes.
Genocidal strategy
Famine kills by many means. The weakening due to malnutrition prevents for example people injured in Israeli bombings “from obtaining the calories and the additional proteins which they would normally need to cure this type of injury and survive it,” said a voluntary doctor in Gaza, who indicates that she sees patients die of injuries who could not have been fatal to them, if they were or they were properly nourished and neat. Hunger also weakens the caregivers, and the director general of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini said this morning that doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals in Gaza “vanish hunger and exhaustion” at work.
As the writer and teacher Alaa Arafat explains in an article written for Al Jazeera, famine is not an unfortunate consequence of the genocide, it is a genocidal strategy. It aims to permanently weaken the residents of Gaza, as it “affects the growth and development of children and leads to an increased predisposition to diseases, learning difficulties, cognitive disorders and psychological problems. »»
“By signing up Palestinian-né children, by depriving them of education and health care, the occupation aims for a single objective: to create a fragile generation, weak of mind and constitution, unable to think and without any other horizon than the search for food, water and a shelter. This means a generation unable to defend his right to land and to resist the occupier. A generation that does not understand the existential struggle of its people. “The war plan is clear and the objective was declared publicly by Israeli-Né officials. The question is now whether the world will let Israel destroy the children of Gaza. »»
