UN investigator accuses Israel of starvation campaign against Gazans

Gaza - Ma'an - The UN independent investigator on the right to food accused the Israeli authorities of carrying out a "starvation campaign" against Palestinians during the war in the Gaza Strip, an accusation that Israel strongly denies. In a report released this week, investigator Michael Fakhri said the crisis began two days after Operation Protective Edge, when Israel responded by blocking all food, water, fuel and other supplies into Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the accusations that Israel was restricting humanitarian aid were "blatantly false," adding at a news conference on Wednesday: "Is it a deliberate starvation policy? You can say anything, but that doesn't mean it's a real policy." After intense international pressure - especially from its close ally the United States - the Netanyahu government gradually opened several border crossings to tightly controlled deliveries. Fakhri said the limited aid initially went mostly to southern and central Gaza, where Israel ordered Pa lestinians to go, not to the north. Fakhri, a professor at the University of Oregon School of Law, was appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva as a special investigator or rapporteur on the right to food, taking up the position in 2020. 'By December 2023, Palestinians in Gaza would account for 80 percent of the world's population suffering from famine or catastrophic hunger,' the UN rapporteur said, adding that 'never in post-war history has a people gone hungry so rapidly and comprehensively as the 2.3 million Palestinians living in Gaza.' Fakhri, who teaches legal courses on human rights, food law and development, made the accusations in a report to the UN General Assembly that was published on Thursday. 'It goes back 76 years to the establishment of Israel and its ongoing displacement of Palestinians,' he points out. 'Since then, Israel has deployed a full range of hunger and starvation techniques against Palestinians, perfecting the degree of control, suffering and death it can i nflict through food systems.' Fakhri said that since the war in Gaza began, he has received direct reports of the destruction of the food system in the Strip, including agricultural land and fishing, which has been documented and recognized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and others. He added that 'Israel has used humanitarian aid as a political and military weapon to harm and kill the Palestinian people in Gaza.' For its part, Israel claims it no longer imposes restrictions on the number of aid trucks entering Gaza, including food. At a news conference on Wednesday, Netanyahu cited figures from the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, the Israeli military body that oversees aid entry into Gaza, which claims that 700,000 tons of food have been allowed into Gaza since the war began 11 months ago. The humanitarian situation in Gaza is "beyond catastrophic," said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric, with more than a million Palestinians not receiving any food rati ons in August and the number of people receiving daily cooked meals falling by 35 percent. The sharp drop in cooked meals is partly due to multiple evacuation orders by the Israeli military that have forced at least 70 of the 130 kitchens to suspend operations or relocate, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Thursday. Dujarric added that the United Nations humanitarian partners also lack sufficient food supplies to meet needs for the second month in a row in central and southern Gaza, saying that the severe shortage of supplies in Gaza stems from hostilities, insecurity, damaged roads, Israeli obstacles and restrictions on access. Regarding the humanitarian situation in the northern Gaza Strip, famine is still ravaging the residents of the north, in light of the complete lack of basic necessities of life, such as food, vegetables, medicine and meat. What reaches those areas is only sufficient for a very limited number. Source: Maan News Agency