OPINION - Starvation in Gaza

By Hilal Elver

- The author has been a research professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara since 2002 and is the co-director of the Global Climate Change, Human Security, and Democracy Project, as well as a distinguished global fellow at the UCLA Law School, Resnick Food Law and Policy program. Between 2014 and 2020, she was the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. She has been a member of the Steering Committee of the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE- FSN) since 2021.

ISTANBUL (AA) - “The tragic effect of the use of starvation as a method of warfare against Gaza's civilian population is acute, it is visible and it is widely known. And it's confirmed by multiple witnesses and victims, including local and foreign medical doctors. That starvation has caused and continues to cause deaths, malnutrition, dehydration and profound suffering among the population,” International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan issued a statement on May 20, 2024, requesting arrest warrants in the situation in Gaza.

As Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip enters its second year, 2.3 million Gazans are struggling to survive. On top of the skyrocketing death toll and injuries caused by military attacks, people are starving from the lack of food and children are dying of malnourishment. The cause of this famine is Israeli-imposed blockades on foodstuffs and other forms of humanitarian relief. Yet the UN Famine Review Committee has failed to formally recognize this harrowing reality, which is destined to worsen as long as there is no cease-fire.

According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, by the end of July 2024, the death toll reached 40,000. The British medical journal Lancet calculated that the true death toll—if the indirect impact of war on life prospects is calculated—could reach over 186,000, a staggering 8% of Gaza’s population.[1] This Lancet number includes more than 20,000 buried under the rubble, including 4,000 children.[2] Additionally, approximately 21,000 children are missing in the chaos of the war. This includes 17,000 unaccompanied and separated or lost children whose parents are detained or buried in unmarked graves.

In addition to direct casualties of war, the secondary effects of the conflict, such as malnutrition, infectious diseases, and lack of medical care have made the human tragedy in Gaza extremely severe.[3] Starvation is a war crime if food and water are used as a weapon of war. Starvation in Gaza is clearly and intentionally caused by Israel, based on medical evidence, testimonies of humanitarian organizations, and direct statements by Israeli leaders.

- Background of famine in Gaza

A famine is defined as the most severe kind of hunger crisis. It is very rare, but when it does occur, it means that there is an extreme shortage of food and several children and adults within a certain area are dying of hunger on a daily basis. Famine never happens overnight. It is a process that results from political decisions and is almost always attributable to human activity. However, each famine has its own story. The origins of the Gaza famine can be traced back to 2006 when an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert explained: “The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.”[4] In 2007, the Israeli government implemented the Palestinian “diet” as punishment for the election of Hamas in the 2006 election. Today’s crisis is the culmination of continuous policies to limit access to food based on calculated caloric minimum needs for survival. By the start of Israel’s current war on Gaza, the population had been under siege for 17 years. On Oct. 9, 2023, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ordered a halt to all human necessities. No food, no fuel, no electricity, no medicines, no vaccination activities, no access to safe water.

This collective punishment of the civilian population of Gaza is a direct violation of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention governing belligerent occupation. As basic resources needed to survive were depleted over the following months, humanitarian deprivations quickly reached famine conditions.

- Uniqueness of Gaza famine

The Gaza famine is unique among conflict-induced starvation. The current condition in Gaza is far more devastating than other sites of hunger and starvation during conflicts such as Somalia, Afghanistan, Yemen and currently Sudan. In those countries, 40 to 60% of the population is enduring starvation conditions, but in Gaza famine affects 100% of the population.[5] This means that an entire generation—335,000 children under the age of five—are at risk of stunted growth or wasting if they manage to survive. These conditions adversely affect the physical and mental development of generations to come.

According to Alex De Waal, a renowned scholar on famine, “the pace and scale of the destruction of objects indispensable to survival in Gaza surpasses any other case of man-made famine in the last 75 years.”[6] He adds: “What’s different about the Gaza case is the speed and the comprehensiveness of that destruction. We have not seen a population reduced from an acute stress to an extreme emergency on this scale in a matter of months.”[7]

Moreover, Gaza is the first genocidal battleground in which high-level Israeli government officials repeatedly use dehumanizing, exterminationist language in the course of acknowledging tactics obviously intended to induce mass starvation.[8] Legal experts working on the crime of starvation and criminal accountability were surprised, if not shocked, that Israeli senior officials “are very clearly publicizing their intent.” [9]

- Humanity’s catastrophe

The massive destruction of basic necessities contributes to an irreversible humanitarian catastrophe. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres calls the situation in Gaza “humanity’s catastrophe, not humanitarian catastrophe,” emphasizing that the international community has failed to discharge its responsibility to do all in its power to stop the war.[10]

Gazans are living in tents, partly destroyed school buildings, or on streets with no shelter. Nowhere is safe from the incessant Israeli bombing. This destruction has compounded life-threatening conditions, including waterborne infectious diseases, which impact negatively on the health of children and the elderly. Most recently, a polio outbreak is threatening the entire Gaza children, if a successful vaccination campaign is not implemented.

Anything necessary for human life in Gaza is being destroyed, including food systems; 80 to 96% of agricultural assets, including greenhouses and irrigation systems, have been damaged or demolished, and 81% of the Gaza fishing sector has been permanently destroyed. Waste management facilities have been damaged or destroyed, and power has been cut or interrupted.[11] The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) estimated that at least 100,000 cubic meters of sewage and wastewater are being dumped daily onto land or into the Mediterranean Sea. Deliberate damage to Gaza’s natural resources and environment is considered a “crime of ecocide.” As a result, 100% of the population is reliant on food aid to survive and is subject to acute malnutrition, extreme hunger, and infectious diseases.

Deeper and longer impacts of severe malnutrition on young children, pregnant women, elderly people, and persons who are already sick or have underlying conditions can make malnutrition lethal. The World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF warn that young children cannot tolerate even short periods of malnutrition. A senior UNICEF advisor bluntly stated, “If a child is malnourished, particularly under two years of age, they are unable to cognitively catch up with other children. The brain is such a big part of caloric and nutrient consumption in a child’s development.” [12]

Even if the war ends in the near future, the destruction of Gaza’s health and food systems will exert serious negative impacts on the human development of the current population and generations to come. The current situation is dire and bloody, making accurate assessments of longer-term effects fundamentally unknowable.

- No declaration of famine in Gaza

Famine is a technical term that applies when a population experiences extreme levels of acute malnutrition and mortality due to insufficient supplies and inadequate quality of food. The most authoritative calculations of famine statistics are done by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) that is periodically conducted with the cooperation of several UN organizations.[13] IPC classifies five stages of food insecurity, and each stage requires appropriate action to address its distinctive problems: Phase 1: None/minimal; Phase 2: Stressed; Phase 3: Crisis; Phase 4: Emergency; and Phase 5: Catastrophe/Famine.

The IPC determines famine exists when a population finds itself entering stage 5 (Catastrophe) after three indicators have reached the following thresholds: Famine is present when at least 20% of the population is affected, with about one out of three children being acutely malnourished and two people dying per day for every 10,000 inhabitants due to outright starvation or to the interaction of malnutrition and disease. All three conditions of famine existed in various pockets of Gaza since the first 100 days of the war. Now it is in the entire Gaza.

Declaring famine is not only a technical decision but also a political decision. Although IPC experts, the Famine Review Committee (FRC) conduct and review the analysis necessary to classify widespread hunger and serious malnutrition as a famine, only government and top UN officials can make a formal declaration, which requires a complex bureaucratic process. In many cases, countries have hesitated to go through such a process. Therefore, authorization has been usually late to declare famine, and in many cases when famine is finally declared it is too late to save lives.[14]

Despite all three conditions of famine that existed in parts of Gaza since the first 100 days of the war, in Gaza, a declaration of famine was even more difficult than in other cases due to Israel’s calculated tactics throughout the war to block humanitarian aid, even when conditions of starvation threatened to reach the threshold indicator. Israel is well aware that the crime of starvation is occurring in Gaza. A declaration of famine would provide convincing evidence to justify the pursuit of accountability.

As of this writing, famine has not yet formally been declared in Gaza.[15] However, according to the most recent analysis of the IPC on June 25, 2024, the FRC stated that the entire Gaza Strip faces a “plausible” risk of famine in the coming months, an assessment driven by new evidence. Now, Gaza is being subjected to a famine diet that helps calculate the durability and resilience of human life without any food! It would have been possible to stop such a human catastrophe if there were a global political will, solidarity to protect vulnerable civilians and a binding convention giving states and the international community clear legal mandates to prevent famine.

[1] Counting the Dead in Gaza: Difficult but Essential, Lancet, July 2024. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1016/50140-6736(24)01169-3 (accessed Jul 23, 2024)

[2] https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/news/media-centre/press-releases/over-20000-children-estimated-to-be-lost-in- gaza#:~:

[3] Id. (The Lancet)

[4] https://imeu.org/article/putting-palestinians-on-a-diet-israels-siege-blockade-of-gaza

[5] https://www.fao.org/cfs/cfs-hlpe/insights/news-insights/news-detail/new-issues-paper--conflict-induced-acute-food-crises--potential-policy-responses-in-light-of-current-emergencies/en

[6] https://worldpeacefoundation.org/blog/gazas-famine-warning-in-perspective/

[7] https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/interview/2024/01/18/israel-icj-gaza-famine-starvation-de-waal

[8] https://stratsea.com/dangers-of-dehumanizing-rhetoric-and-its-impact-on-the-palestinian-people/

[9] https://globalrightscompliance.com/2024/01/08/how-experts-believe-starvation-is-being-utilized-in-gaza/

[10] https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/12/1144547

[11] Food Security Information Network (FSIN) and Global Network Against Food Crises, 2024.

[12] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/children-skeletons-rising-hunger-gaza-famine/#:~:text=In%20the%20dusty%20scrubland%20of,several%20members%20of%20their%20family.

[13] Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) guidelines defining Acute Food Insecurity (AFI), Chronic Food Insecurity (CFI), and Acute Malnutrition (AMN). Available at: https://www.ipcinfo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ipcinfo/docs/communication_tools/brochures/IPC_Brochure_Understanding_the_IPC_Scales.pdf.

[14] Since the IPC was developed in 2004, it has been used to identify only two famines: in Somalia in 2011, and in South Sudan in 2017. In Somalia, more than 100 000 people died before famine was officially declared. In Yemen and Ethiopia, however, IPC analysts expressed grave concern about food insecurity related to the civil wars, but not enough information was available from governments to issue a formal assessment.

[15] The Famine Review Committee in March 2024 concluded that “famine is now projected and imminent” in Northern Gaza by the end of May. On June 8, same body rejected this conclusion and said that is not “plausible” that Northern Gaza has entered a state of famine on the grounds that such assertions ignored or underestimated the value of both commercial sources of food and certain forms of humanitarian aid. See: https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/06/17/expert-panel-rejects-claims-of-famine-in-northern-gaza/.

*Opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Anadolu