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Famine is not an issue of charity. It is an issue of justice. It is an eternal obligation toward the human being not to let anybody suffer from hunger when one has a chance of coming to his or her assistance. If we can conquer space, we must conquer famine in Gaza Strip. The bigger responsibility lies with the international community to press Israeli war machines to stop war and genocide in Gaza.
According to the World Food Program as of 9 December, more than half of the population of Gaza was "starving" and more than nine in ten were not eating every day and 48% suffering from "extreme hunger.” One of the few bakeries that had still been standing in the Gaza Strip was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in Deir al-Balah overnight, and Gazans were reported to be searching through the rubble of bombed bakeries attempting to find bags of flour.
The United Nations has warned that a collapse of social order could result from the intense hunger among Palestinians. The Associated Press reported that rare instances of public dissent against Hamas were taking place, with reports of angry chants against Hamas by hundreds of people taking refuge in a UN shelter.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki, who is part of the Palestinian Authority, said Israel was using starvation as a weapon, saying "they are starving because of Israel's deliberate use of starvation as a weapon of war against the people it occupied." An Israeli official responded that the charge was "blood-libellous" and "delusional.” Israel has been using starvation as a weapon of war by deliberately denying access to food and water.
On 16 January 2024, UN experts accused Israel of "destroying Gaza's food system and using food as a weapon against the Palestinian people.” Michael Fakhri, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, said that Israel is intentionally starving Palestinians, stating "Intentionally depriving people of food is clearly a war crime" and that Israel was intending to "destroy the Palestinian people, in whole or in part, simply for being Palestinian." On last 3 March 2024, Fakhri stated that "famine may very well be already occurring."
On 29 February, civilians attempting to get aid from food trucks were shot at by IDF soldiers, with at least 118 being killed. The event has been labelled as a massacre by some sources and been referred to as the "flour massacre.” The UN called for an investigation into these killings, stating it had "recorded at least 14 incidents involving shooting and shelling of people gathered to receive desperately needed supplies.”
In February 2024, the United Nations stated that 576,000 people were "facing catastrophic levels of deprivation and starvation.” As of 22 February, the entire population in the Gaza Strip is classified in Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Phase 3 - Crisis, or above. 50% of the population is in IPC Phase 4 - Emergency, and 25% is in IPC Phase 5 - Catastrophe. According to the IPC, the risk of famine is increasing every day.
The scale, extent, and pace of destruction of buildings in the Gaza Strip ranks among the most severe in modern history. The 29,000 munitions -shells and bombs- Israel has dropped on Gaza in 3 months greatly exceed those (3,678) dropped by the United States between 2004 and 2010 during its Invasion of Iraq. Nearly 70% of homes in Gaza and roughly half of all buildings have been damaged or destroyed.
Bombing has destroyed or damaged apartment buildings, hospitals, schools, religious sites, factories, and shopping centers. The Guardian reported that the scale of destruction has led international legal experts to raise the concept of domicide, which it describes as "the mass destruction of dwellings to make a territory uninhabitable.” By 30 January 2024, satellite image analysis found Israel had destroyed 50-61% of the buildings in Gaza since the start of the war.
Definitively assessing the extent of destruction in Gaza has been complicated by difficulties in accessing up-to-date satellite imagery. An analysis by The Washington Post found "apparent craters within 180 meters of 17 of the 28 hospitals in northern Gaza", although this represents "a conservative undercount of the actual bombs dropped near Gaza's hospitals.” This analysis focused on bombs weighing 2,000 pounds or more, which could irreparably damage a building 180 meters away. Israel has employed unguided munitions, which are particularly destructive, and has used artificial intelligence to quickly identify targets for bombing.
It is "deeply concerned for the fate of everyone in Gaza right now.” On 21 October, a joint statement by UNICEF, WHO, UNDP, UNFPA, and WFP stated, "the world must do more" for Gaza. On last 26 October, the World Health Organization stated Gaza's humanitarian and health crisis had "reached catastrophic proportions.”
On 28 October, the Red Cross president Mirjana Spoljaric Egger stated she was "shocked by the intolerable level of human suffering.” During the course of the first month of the war, the Gaza Ministry of Health recorded more than 4,000 children killed in Gaza. UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on 6 November that Gaza is "fast becoming a graveyard for children."
Israeli UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan responded overweeningly to Guterres, stating "Shame on [Guterres]... More than 30 minors – among them a 9-month-old baby as well as toddlers and children who witnessed their parents being murdered in cold blood – are being held against their will in the Gaza Strip. Hamas is the problem in Gaza, not Israel's actions to eliminate this terrorist organization."
On 8 November, UN Human Rights chief Volker Turk described the Rafah Crossing as "gates to a living nightmare.” On 10 November, spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Jens Laerke stated, "if there is a hell on earth, it is the north of Gaza.”
Retired Israeli major general Giora Eiland compared Israel's situation to that of the United States after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. He argued that if Israel wanted to disarm Hamas, it had "no choice" but to make Gaza a place "that is temporarily or permanently impossible to live in". This, he stated, was not a "program for revenge", but a way to get the hostages back.
On 18 October, the United States UN representative Linda Thomas-Greenfield vetoed a UN Security Council resolution urging humanitarian aid to Gaza. On 27 October, the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly for a resolution on immediate humanitarian truce in Gaza and aid access. The resolution attracted 121 votes in favor and 44 abstentions; 14 countries voted against, namely Israel, the United States, Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Fiji, Guatemala, Hungary, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay and Tonga.
Jan Egeland, the Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said on 5 December that "The pulverising of Gaza now ranks amongst the worst assaults on any civilian population in our time and age. Each day we see more dead children and new depths of suffering for the innocent people enduring this hell.”
On 12 December, the UN General Assembly once again voted overwhelmingly for a resolution on immediate humanitarian truce in Gaza and aid access. The resolution attracted 153 votes in favor and 23 abstentions; 10 countries voted against, namely Israel, the United States, Austria, the Czech Republic, Guatemala, Liberia, Micronesia, Nauru, Papua New Guinea and Paraguay.
Due to an agreement reportedly brokered by Qatar and France between Israel and Hamas, medicine was scheduled to leave Doha via two military aircraft and be delivered to the Gaza Strip on 17 January 2024 to aid hostages. The medicine couldn’t be successfully delivered.
“Yet sure fasting
A sigh always spreads in the corner of my mind-
I am a poet of famine,
Every day I see nightmares, vivid images of death!” - Sukanta Bhattacharya
This is the moment when we must come together to save the planet of Gaza Strip. Let the international community resolve that they will not leave people a world where the oceans rise and famine spreads and terrible genocide devastate the land of Gaza.
The writer is a freedom fighter who writes on politics and international issues
Messenger/Fameema
