The Guardian:
12/05/2025 Monday briefing: Is Israel using starvation as a weapon of war? | |
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Good morning.
If anyone thought that military sieges were consigned to the history books, they need only look at the images coming out of Gaza of starving children and obliterated landscapes as food, fuel and medicine – readily available just a few kilometres away – continue to be withheld.
Gaza has been under a total military blockade by Israel since the beginning of March. The Israeli government, which last week announced plans to begin the military conquest and occupation of the Gaza Strip, says it will refuse to allow in aid until it can take control of its distribution and be assured that it will not be siphoned off by Hamas.
The aid agencies still operating inside the Gaza Strip say that they have run out of food and, without immediate access to humanitarian supplies, it will be hunger, not bombs, that will kill people in increasing numbers.
Despite facing accusations that it is using starvation as a weapon of war, Israel, backed by the US, continues to insist that it is acting in compliance with international humanitarian and human rights laws.
For today’s newsletter, I talked with Paola Gaeta, director of the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, about whether we are seeing war crimes being committed with impunity in Gaza, and the possible consequences of Israel’s new strategy.
In depth: The world is at a ‘moral crossroads’ over Gaza | |
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Human rights groups say there can now be no doubt that Israel intends to control humanitarian aid as part of its intended conquest of the Gaza Strip. Last week, more than 20 UN experts said that the desperate situation facing over 2 million people trapped in Gaza placed the world at a moral crossroads, facing a choice between acting to halt the violence or witnessing the annihilation of the Palestinian population in the territory. We are all collectively, they said, descending into a “moral abyss”. What is Israel saying it wants to do in Gaza? Last week Israel approved a plan for Operation Gideon’s Chariots, a military campaign involving the mass mobilisation of tens of thousands of reservist soldiers to facilitate the conquest of the Gaza Strip. This would involve the displacement of most of Gaza’s population to zones “clean of Hamas”. Israeli officials are also talking openly about potential “voluntary” displacement from the territory altogether to allow the implementation of a reconstruction plan announced by Donald Trump in January. The language used has been stark and brutal. Last week Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said that Gaza would be “entirely destroyed”. The UN and aid agencies recoiled in horror at the news. In what many would see as an understatement, Volker Türk, the UN’s high commissioner for human rights, said it represented a “dangerous moment for the civilian population”. Why is there no humanitarian aid going into Gaza? Israel has restricted food, fuel and medical supplies going into Gaza for most of the war, but no aid at all has gone into Gaza for more than two months now. Israel has repeatedly justified its ongoing siege of the strip and its humanitarian aid blockade with claims of defence and security concerns, and says that Hamas is diverting and profiting from aid brought in by international organisations. It also says that it will not let any food, fuel or medicine into Gaza until Hamas release all the remaining hostages it still holds. How does this stand under international law? In July 2024, the international court of justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of the UN, ruled that the Gaza Strip was under occupation by Israel. Paola says that under international humanitarian law, an occupying power has a duty to provide relief and aid to the local population. Not allowing humanitarian aid into the strip is illegal under international law and potentially a war crime. “But Israel, backed up by the United States, does not accept the ICJ’s ruling that it is an occupying force,” says Paola. “And so it says that means it does not have a legal obligation to ensure that the civilian population’s basic needs are met.” She says that when it comes to humanitarian law, if you are not an occupying force, you can retain some power over the control and distribution of humanitarian aid to make sure it is not diverted to a warring party. “So in this way they are insisting that they are still in compliance with international law.” Paola says that many human rights lawyers like herself believe that Israel has “changed the grammar” of international humanitarian law and the Geneva conventions throughout the conflict. ‘There is no doubt in my mind that they are abusing the system,” she says. “They have bombed hospitals, killed journalists and destroyed civilian infrastructure and are arguing that they are still following international humanitarian law because it is a proportional response to the threat they are facing.” Is the starvation of a civilian population a war crime? Using starvation as a method of warfare is a war crime under international law, specifically prohibited by the Geneva conventions and their Protocols. Despite the World Food Programme and others saying all food stocks are gone and malnourishment is widespread, Israel denies that it is using hunger as a weapon of war, with some politicians saying there are enough supplies of water and food inside the strip. Israel has already been accused of using hunger as a means of displacement when it deprived the north of Gaza of food in October 2024 to displace the civilian population to the south. The international criminal court (ICC) arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu issued last year cites starvation as a method of warfare as one of the charges. What is Israel saying it’s going to do to get supplies to civilians? Israel has said that in order to ensure that aid gets to civilians, it intends to take control of the distribution and administration of humanitarian assistance through a series of “hubs” or distribution points controlled by the Israeli military. Under the proposal, private companies (which at the moment appear to be from the US and Egypt) would run these hubs, distributing aid to civilians who have been “screened”. Paola says this would essentially allow the Israeli military to decide who could receive food and medicine. It could also allow Israel to create aid deserts to displace civilians forcibly from their homes and land. “Under international law, aid must not be used to achieve military objectives,” she says. “It must be impartial.” International humanitarian organisations and the United Nations have said they cannot accept what Israel is proposing as it does not “live up to the core fundamental humanitarian principles of impartiality, neutrality and independent delivery of aid”. As one aid worker told the Guardian, it is an attempt to “centralise, privatise and militarise aid” delivery, which will mean people are excluded from humanitarian assistance, which could make the aid organisations themselves complicit in war crimes. Yet over the weekend, the United States has begun pressing aid organisations to accept Israel’s terms. There are fears that this could create an impossible environment for aid organisations to continue operating inside Gaza – the last international witnesses to what is happening on the ground. Can anyone force Israel to let aid in? Ever since Donald Trump’s plan to create a riviera of the Middle East in the ruins of the Gaza Strip, and what Andrew Roth labelled in a recent analysis his “walkaway diplomacy”, an emboldened Netanyahu has seemed unstoppable. Trump has shown flashes of concern for Gaza’s population, saying that he will help civilians “get some food” despite the blockade. “But the silence and complicity of the rest of the world has been shameful,” Paola says. “The international community could stop this but we are choosing not to.” There are some signs that the prospect of watching Palestinians in Gaza starve to death in real time has prompted some action. Last week, for example, the Dutch government, seen as one of Israel’s most loyal EU allies, called for an urgent review of the EU-Israel association agreement, describing the ban on aid going into Gaza as a clear breach of international humanitarian law. Paola says that there have also been serious attempts at the highest judicial levels to hold Israel to account. As well as the ICC arrest warrants, the ICJ recently heard evidence on the legality of Israel’s withholding of humanitarian aid. Yet the judicial system is slow and the ICJ’s judgments nonbinding, with no one required to take concrete action to implement its rulings. ‘The hope is that it will become unsustainable for governments to keep supporting a country that has ruled to have committed war crimes,” she says. Paola accepts that Israel’s alleged disregard for international humanitarian laws could encourage other countries to follow suit in future conflicts. Yet she says it is more crucial than ever to defend laws such as the Geneva conventions and keep faith with the values they were built on. “What is happening is horrifying,” she says. “But it is not the humanitarian laws that are failing, it is the will of governments to uphold them. They are our moral GPS. It has never been more important to fight for them and the values they represent, not just for people in Gaza but for all of us. |
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