UN: Israel commits war crime against Gaza population by driving them into famine

The UN This Tuesday he accused Israel loud and clear of committing a war crime against the population of Loop by depriving it of food to extremes that have led at least 210,000 people to famine in the north of the enclave, and have put more than 1.1 million Gazans at imminent risk of suffering the same situation.

“The situation of hunger, starvation and famine is a consequence of the enormous restrictions imposed by Israel to the entry and distribution of humanitarian aid and commercial goods, the displacement of the majority of the population, as well as the destruction of vital civil infrastructure,” said the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk.

Both using hunger as a method of war, and applying it to an entire population, constitute war crimes, said a spokesperson for Türk’s Office, after specifying that this does not constitute a legal ruling – which corresponds to the courts – but rather evidence. which results from what is established by international humanitarian law, which the State of Israel is obliged to respect.

The day before, an international consortium of food and nutrition experts, in charge of establishing the Integrated Food Safety Phase Classification (IPC), announced that all the elements had been gathered to confirm that the famine It will occur between the time they evaluated the situation, last week, until May.

With more than two million Palestinians suffering from hunger to a greater or lesser extent, this is the highest number of people at risk of falling into a “catastrophic food situation” – which now practically nothing separates famine and which leads to deaths from starvation. – registered by the system CPI since its creation.

Coinciding with the publication of these data, Israel denied entry to Gaza of the head of the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), the largest organization capable of providing humanitarian aid in the enclave and which has been the target of a sustained campaign. of discredit by the Israeli Government.

Beyond classifications and methodologies that are difficult to interpret, the United Nations Humanitarian Coordination Office (OCHA) explained that data on hunger in Loop They do not describe a possible reality in the future, but rather a situation that is occurring right now, at least in the two northern administrative areas of the Palestinian territory.

“All survival mechanisms have been exhausted and, mind you, those mechanisms are people eating bird seeds, animal fodder, grass and weeds. “We are beyond that, there is literally nothing left”said OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke, who despite having twenty years of experience following one humanitarian crisis after another, could not help but break his voice when describing the situation.

In practice, at least 70% of the remaining Gazans in northern Gaza, or some 210,000, are already suffering from famine and deaths from starvation will increase there day by day, particularly among the most fragile, who are children and the sick.

“These are not projections of what will surely happen at the end of May (if food is not supplied to Gazans), but rather the famine is surely occurring in a period that began two days ago,” Laerke said.

A few weeks ago, the first deaths of children due to hunger were reported in the few hospitals that continue to function in Gaza, but it is believed that the official figures are lower than reality because the majority cannot reach the medical facilities, due to lack of means of transportation or by the chaos caused by the Israeli bombings and the lack of food itself.

High Commissioner Türk addressed Israel’s allies, asking them to use their influence to convince the government to facilitate the entry and distribution of humanitarian aid in sufficient quantities and on an ongoing basis, the only way to reverse at least a part of a tragedy that gets worse every day.