Despite the U.N. not officially declaring a famine in Gaza after Israel’s blockade, ten top U.N. experts have proclaimed that intentional starvation by Israel has led to a famine across the region. They cited the deaths of multiple children from malnutrition as undeniable evidence. Although Israel claims to have increased aid, severe shortages persist, with hundreds of aid trucks stuck in Egypt. The experts condemn this as a genocidal act, urging global intervention to stop the crisis and calling out the Biden administration for its complicity.
While the United Nations has yet to formally declare a famine in Gaza following nine months of Israel’s near-total embargo of humanitarian aid, ten top UN experts stated on Tuesday that they have seen enough.
“We declare that Israel’s intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people is a form of genocidal violence and has resulted in famine across all of Gaza,” reports UN specialists.
Michael Fakhri, special rapporteur on the right to food, was joined in the statement by other experts, including Francesca Albanese, special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, and Paula Gaviria Betancur, special rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced people.
They said the recent deaths of three youngsters in separate sections of the enclave prompted the experts, who do not speak on behalf of the United Nations as a whole, to declare a famine had broken out.
“Fayez Ataya, who was barely six months old, died on May 30, 2024, and 13-year-old Abdulqader Al-Serhi died on June 1, 2024, at the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah,” according to the witnesses. “On June 3, 2024, nine-year-old Ahmad Abu Reida died in the tent that housed his displaced family in Al-Mawasi, Khan Younis. “All three children died from malnutrition and a lack of access to adequate healthcare.”
“With the death of these children from starvation despite medical treatment in central Gaza, there is no doubt that famine has spread from northern Gaza into central and southern Gaza,” they continued.
Since October, when Israel started bombarding the enclave in retaliation for an attack led by Hamas and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared there would “be no electricity, no food, no fuel” allowed into Gaza, at least 34 Palestinians—the majority of them children—have died from malnutrition.
In reaction to the statement made on Tuesday, Israeli officials noted that while it has lately boosted the amount of aid permitted into Gaza, hundreds of delivery trucks are still stuck in Egypt, and the situation has not much improved despite the construction of a floating pier by the United States.
According to U.N. experts, the first kid to die from starvation and dehydration should have signaled “irrefutable that famine has taken hold.”
“When a two-month-old baby and 10-year-old Yazan Al Kafarneh died of hunger on February 24 and March 4, respectively, this confirmed that famine had struck northern Gaza,” they said. “The whole world should have intervened earlier to stop Israel’s genocidal starvation campaign and prevented these deaths… Inaction is complicity.”
The United Nations-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification declared last month that almost 500,000 people were experiencing “catastrophic” food insecurity, or an acute shortage of food and that Gaza is at high risk of famine.
Aryeh Neier, co-founder of Human Rights Watch, said in May that Israel’s “sustained policy of obstructing the movement of humanitarian assistance into the territory” finally convinced him that Israeli officials are “engaged in genocide.” Before this, Neier had been hesitant to declare that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.
The International Court of Justice issued an order in March, stating that “famine is setting in” and that “the catastrophic living conditions of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have deteriorated further,” compelling Israel to ensure that its military refrain from violating the Genocide Convention by preventing humanitarian aid from reaching people in Gaza.
At a hospital in Khan Younis on Monday, Ghaneyma Joma, a lady, told Reuters that she was afraid her son would soon die from malnutrition.
“It’s distressing to see my child… lying there dying from malnutrition because I cannot provide him with anything due to the war, the closing of crossings, and the contaminated water,” she told the news organization.
The U.S. government, the largest foreign donor to Israel’s armed forces and a steadfast supporter of its efforts in Gaza was urged by the Council on American-Islamic Relations to see to it that a cease-fire deal is reached and that Palestinians receive the essential humanitarian aid.
“The intentional starvation of the Palestinian people in Gaza can only occur with the Biden administration’s active complicity in Israel’s genocide campaign,” said Ibrahim Hooper, the group’s national communications director. “This complicity must end, and the Palestinian people must be offered a future in which they are free of occupation and can live in dignity.”
This is not surprising, as in a chilling exposé, GreatGameIndia reported that Israeli soldiers have confessed to a disturbing reality: they were given unchecked authority to shoot Palestinians, including civilians, in Gaza, often without clear rules of engagement.
