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UN investigator accuses Israel of "deliberately starving" Palestinians in Gaza; Netanyahu denies allegation
By bellecarter // 2024-09-15
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A United Nations independent investigator recently accused Israel of carrying out a "starvation campaign" against the Palestinians as the war in Gaza continues to escalate. The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Michael Fakhri accused the nation that the ongoing conflict in the Palestinian enclave, which caused the spread of disease as well as mass starvation when it started to block all food, water, fuel and other supplies into Gaza, is "killing more people than bombs and bullets." The damage inflicted by famine "is going to be carried by Palestinians for several generations in the future," he further pointed out. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said accusations of Israel limiting humanitarian aid were "outrageously false." "A deliberate starvation policy? You can say anything – it doesn't make it true," he said in a press conference last week. After receiving pressure from the United States and other ally countries, Netanyahu eventually opened several border crossings for tightly controlled deliveries. According to Fakhri, limited aid initially went mostly to southern and central Gaza, not to the north where Israel had ordered Palestinians to evacuate. Netanyahu said during a recent press conference that the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), Israel's military body overseeing aid entry into Gaza, has allowed 700,000 tons of food items into Gaza since the war began 11 months ago. Associated Press reported that nearly half of that food aid in recent months has been brought in by the private sector for sale in Gaza's markets, according to COGAT figures. However, many Palestinians in Gaza say they struggle to afford enough food for their families. "By December, Palestinians in Gaza made up 80 percent of the people in the world experiencing famine or catastrophic hunger. Never in post-war history had a population been made to go hungry so quickly and so completely as was the case for the 2.3 million Palestinians living in Gaza," Fakhri said. Fakhri's report, where he emphasized that famine is a "political" rather than a purely "humanitarian" issue, indicated that 34 Palestinians, the majority of them children, are known to have starved to death since Israel's war on Gaza began in October. In the new report of the investigator to the UN General Assembly last week, he detailed how Israel has used starvation in Gaza "with the intent to destroy in whole or in part the Palestinian people." The report also explained Israel's destruction of Gaza's food system, including the poisoning and destruction of agricultural land and the destruction of ports and fishing vessels served to make the entire population dependent on humanitarian aid. "In turn, Israel then used humanitarian aid as a political and military weapon to harm and kill the Palestinian people in Gaza," the paper added. "Starvation is always deliberate, international, structural and long-lasting," the independent investigator also said in a post on X, formerly Twitter. Back in July, the International Criminal Court (ICC) charged Israel's highest officials with the crime of starvation, Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant were the first individuals to be formally accused by an international court of deliberate starvation, one of seven charges for which ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan announced in May. Israel continues to rejected such accusations, claiming its war is against only Hamas militants and not Palestinian civilians. (Related: UN experts: Children in Gaza are dying because of Israel's "targeted starvation campaign.")

Muslim civil rights group calls on U.S. to address "starvation" in Gaza

In response to the latest United Nations report, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) appealed to U.S. President Joe Biden to address a just-released report asserting that Israel is conducting a "starvation campaign" in Gaza. America's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization wants the current regime to step in and stop the inhumane treatment of Palestinians. "President Biden and Vice President Harris, your legacy is genocide and starvation of the Palestinian civilians. The Israeli government is using all the means at its disposal, including mass murder, expulsion, and forced starvation to exterminate the Palestinian people in Gaza," CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said in a statement. He added that the Biden administration has been essential in enabling these atrocities. "This policy has cost our nation its moral standing in the world. The Biden administration must change course immediately and demand an end to the Israeli government's genocide and stop all military aid to Israeli forces," he continued. He further noted that Israel's assault on Gaza has led to the severe deterioration of sanitation and health care in the strip. Now Gaza's children are deprived of an education because of Israel's constant bombing and shelling. Visit Starvation.news for more stories related to Israel's "hunger campaign" in Gaza.

Sources for this article include:

MiddleEastEye.net APNews.com Documents.UN.org CAIR.com
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