by Liam Noble
Palestinians in Gaza are being subjected to forced starvation. While world humanitarian relief organizations have already mobilized, their efforts have been stonewalled since Israel declared a total blockade of the Gaza Strip. 160,000 pallets of supplies, enough to fill nearly 9,000 trucks, are available and waiting, but the IDF won’t let them in.
The IDF blockade on Gaza has been in place since March 2nd. Food, medical supplies, and basic goods have been kept from moving over the border. Now, three months later, the situation is catastrophic. Flour and food parcels have run out. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated that “the level of acute malnutrition is expected to surpass the famine threshold (30%) in northern Gaza.” About half of Gaza is categorized under “emergency” levels of food insecurity (IPC level 4), one step below famine level.
This is an engineered famine, induced by siege tactics against the civilian population, as part of a coordinated extermination effort against Palestine. Such cruelty can hardly be comprehended. Palestinians have been enclosed within the Gaza Strip and are now being forcibly starved to death. Nearly half of the population in Gaza is under the age of eighteen— these children are being murdered by Israel’s genocidal campaign.
While UNRWA facilities including schools and refugee centers are being bombed, the organization stated it “ran out of food weeks ago.”
The UN World Food Program criteria for famine is that at least 20% of population experiences extreme levels of hunger, that 30% of children are wasted, thin or stunted, and that the daily death rate has doubled above average to two per 10,000 adult deaths, and four per 10,000 deaths among children.
Technical definitions aside, the WFP chief Cindy McCain said “if we wait until after a famine is confirmed, it will already be too late for many people.”
Because the hunger has been intentionally architected (on top of eighteen months of war and indiscriminate bombings), the rapid progression to famine levels cannot be overstated— there is no food left in Gaza. “Eighty percent of Gaza has been either declared an Israeli militarized zone or is under evacuation orders.” In the last two weeks of May 161,000 people have been displaced. Since March, 600,000. The IPC reported that “social order [in Gaza] is breaking down.”
“Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” Scheme
A new US-Israeli scheme began wherein “private contractors” (read: mercenaries) are used to bait Palestinians into concentration zones with offers of food and supplies. Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a company registered this year in Switzerland, is allegedly funded by Israel through US shell companies, and will be using biometrics at control points to restrict the flow of aid, and gather information on recipients.
This is a decoy effort to stop or slow food deliveries, and presented as an alternative to UN organizations. GHF is a controlled humanitarian program, whose relief can be throttled at will, to maximize the starvation potential while maintaining an illusion of humanitarian relief. The only way to stop this starvation is for the blockade to be lifted, and supplies to enter unimpeded.
But even the mercenaries are getting cold feet. The executive director of GHF, Jake Wood, resigned from his post on May 25th, a day before the program could be launched. Wood claimed that contrary to his aim to “feed hungry people, address security concerns about diversion, and complement the work of longstanding NGOs in Gaza. However, it is clear that it is not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence, which I will not abandon.”
On May 26th, the GHF began its operation, and the American mercenaries immediately lost control of the situation— their facility was rushed by Palestinians seeking food, and the Americans had to be rescued.
The Gaza government media office stated: “Today’s events are clear evidence of the occupation’s failure to manage the humanitarian crisis it has deliberately created. Establishing ghettos for distributing limited aid is a deliberate policy aimed at sustaining starvation and dismantling society.”
Food is being weaponized in a new scheme to remove the Palestinians from Gaza— kill the population through starvation and corral survivors into tightly controlled distribution areas. Persons seeking supplies in these “humanitarian zones” will be trapped and might face “deportation,” forced removal to Libya (according to a plan under development in the Trump administration).
This terrifying reality is made stark by the statements of Israeli fascist politician Bezalel Smotrich: “Humanitarian aid is only being allowed in so the world does not stop us and accuse us of war crimes. We are dismantling Gaza, leaving it in ruins with unprecedented destruction, and the world hasn’t stopped us.”
The people of the world are united in their outrage against Israel’s genocide of Palestine, and Israel’s sadistic aggression against the children, women and men of Gaza. Yet despite overwhelming condemnation of Israel, the world has not yet found a way to stop it. When will this end? What will it take?
