The United Nations and humanitarian organisations have accused Israel of potentially committing a war crime by deliberately starving Gaza’s population, a charge that significantly increases the prospect of legal culpability at the International Court of Justice. The accusation, backed by mounting evidence, focuses on Israel’s obstruction of aid entry into the Palestinian territory.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken underlined the growing crisis on Wednesday, warning that all of Gaza’s 2.2 million people are experiencing ‘severe levels of acute food insecurity’, the first time an entire population has been so classified. The war crime of starvation is clearly defined under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as intentionally depriving civilians of objects indispensable to their survival, including wilfully impeding relief supplies.
Israel, as an occupying power in Gaza, is legally responsible under Article 55 of the Fourth Geneva Convention for ensuring food and medical supplies for the population. This requires the occupier to bring in necessary foodstuffs if local resources are inadequate. Israel denies the allegation but faces a growing body of evidence.
The UN’s famine review committee, using data from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), concluded that a very limited number of food trucks are authorised to enter northern Gaza, and no food trucks have been able to discharge in Gaza City since 5 February. The IPC report found Palestinians facing ‘emergency’ and ‘catastrophe’ levels of malnutrition.
Analysis by Oxfam America and Human Rights Watch accused Israel of systematically preventing aid from reaching the roughly 300,000 Palestinians in northern Gaza, obstructing over half of planned humanitarian missions in the first six weeks of 2024. The organisations charged Israel with a deliberate policy of starvation, in violation of international humanitarian law.
