Israeli occupation deliberately targets Palestinian food system, a 'tactical strategy': Activist

By Muhammet Ikbal Arslan

GENEVA (AA) - The Israeli occupation deliberately targets the Palestinian food system, which is a "tactical strategy," according to an activist.

An advocacy officer at the Palestinian Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), Yasmeen El-Hasan recalled that the Israeli occupation targeted agricultural areas, fishing infrastructure, seaports, and rural areas.

"These attacks have impacted the entire system of food production by attempting to disrupt Palestinians' ability to sustain themselves," she told Anadolu.

Israel aims to create a "situation where the Palestinians that are not killed by Israeli bombs will die of starvation, or dehydration, or disease," she said.

El-Hasan added that normally the land of Palestine provides its residents "more than enough" to sustain themselves.

"Starvation is not a matter of lack of resources. This is a human-made crisis, and the Israeli occupation is manufacturing a mass starvation of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip," she noted.

The activist emphasized the importance of "food sovereignty" over "food security," and explained: "This is a tactical strategy of settler colonialism in an attempt to materially sever the indigenous people's connection with their land. The agricultural areas and food production system in Palestine right now are decimated, the occupation has totally destroyed."

El-Hasan also said these actions would have "unimaginable environmental consequences," and would prevent the future Palestinian generations from continuing to live there, which is, according to the activist, "another tactical strategy of settler colonialism."

"This is an intensification of an ongoing and pre-existing catastrophe," she noted. "While the occupation is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip, the settler colonial enterprise is expanding within the West Bank as well."

Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, which Tel Aviv says killed nearly 1,200 people and took 250 as hostages.

The war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while most of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, which in an interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

*Writing by Nur Asena Erturk in Ankara