Gaza famine: a silent weapon killing civilians amidst the genocide!

In the heart of the 21st century, when the world boasts of its technological achievements, and nations are proud of their pacts and treaties that raise the slogan of protecting human rights and preserving their dignity, the tragedy of Gaza appears as a slap on the face of the human conscience, to expose the fragility of the human rights. These slogans are in front of the tragic reality. What is happening in Gaza was never just a passing crisis, it was a double war on everything in it: a tumultuous war in which rockets were killed and destroyed, and a silent war in which starvation was used as a hidden weapon to conquer unarmed civilians. Perhaps the latter is more deadly and more impactful, as it is a war that fights civilians with their hunger and leaves its effects on entire generations.

The current situation in Gaza constitutes a full-fledged crime by international law, where starvation is being used as a means of genocide, in flagrant defiance of all international laws and norms.

What Gazans are experiencing today is not a temporary food shortage, but rather a systematic deprivation of the most basic necessities of life, amounting to slow annihilation. Food and medicine trucks have become hostages to negotiations; they enter very slowly, and sometimes are completely blocked. This constitutes a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, which explicitly prohibits “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare” (Article 54 of Additional Protocol I to the 1977 Geneva Conventions).

The famine in Gaza is neither inevitable nor a passing crisis. It was not caused by a natural disaster, but rather a deliberate act that amounts to a crime against humanity.