Starvation as a Weapon against Gaza

Aziz Samir searches through the ruins of Gaza (source: Aziz Samir)

Part two of the Reports from Gaza series

[Editor's note: This is a follow up to Aziz Samir's "Militarization of Aid in Gaza" article. The situation is not stagnant; things have gotten much worse since the last update. While the world's attention is drawn towards the Israel-Iran war, it is important to remember that the engineered famine in Gaza is still the most pressing international emergency.]

Saturday, June 21, 2025

Starvation as a Weapon against Gaza: A Deepening Crisis

Since the October 7th militant attacks on the occupation forces in Palestine, Israel has enacted punitive measures against the entire civilian population of Gaza. The war crimes committed by the occupation forces violate international law in numerous ways and are carried out in a systematic manner by the Israeli state. The most destructive of these crimes is the use of starvation as a tool of ethnic cleansing against the native Palestinian population. Without international intervention to stop Israel, over a million Palestinians are at risk of death by starvation.

How is Israel Using Starvation as a Weapon?

Due to the negative international attention Israel's actions have garnered, they hope to eliminate the Palestinian people all at once through mass starvation. To achieve this goal, they have employed the following methods:

• Using control of entrance points to cut Gaza off from outside food aid.

• Intimidation or physical assaults against organizations that try to provide aid.

• Militarization of distribution checkpoints in order to arbitrarily deny aid to the civilian population (see "Militarization of Aid in Gaza").

• Practice of "drip-feeding" insignificant amounts of aid into Gaza that creates the illusion of Israel preventing famine, but does not sustain the civilian population in the long-term.

Why is this Policy Allowed to Continue?

Although this process of engineering a famine clearly constitutes a war crime, Israel has been able to implement this plan due to several factors:

1. Strategic Alliances: Most of the highly-developed countries have strong ties to the Zionist regime of Israel. Their disproportionate political/economic weight allows them to provide diplomatic cover to the occupation forces.

2. Manipulation of Media: Corporate media retains a high level of trust within the developed world. These large media organizations work directly with their governments to provide a false narrative regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict.

3. Apathy of the Public: Civilian populations in the developing world have become insulated from global events. Where the misinformation of the mainstream media does not reach, complete ignorance of the situation does just as well to prevent public outrage.

4. War with Iran: By expanding the conflict to Iran, Israel has managed to draw attention away from its genocidal actions in Gaza.

Impact on Gaza’s Population

Throughout this process of forced starvation, we have seen a steady decline in the health of the Gazan civilian population. These disastrous effects include:

• Malnutrition: The average caloric intake for a Palestinian living in Gaza is well below what is needed to maintain their minimum metabolic rate. Over a million civilians are on the verge of starvation, especially children.

• Spread of Diseases: In addition to insufficient medical supplies, the poor quality and meagre amounts of food available to the civilian population has facilitated the rise of easily-preventable diseases.

• Breakdown of Public Order: The artificial scarcity created by Israel's blockade has caused many within Gaza's civilian population to act out of desperation. Kidnappings, violent confrontations, and competition for limited resources has led to a complete lack of security.

• Long-term Maldevelopment: The effects of poor diets and untreated illnesses will have lasting consequences on the civilian population. Children are the most vulnerable, since they need adequate nutrition in order to properly develop.

Conclusion

The current food crisis in Gaza is completely engineered by Israel and has the clear aim of ethnically cleansing the Palestinian population through mass starvation. There are several advantages that Israel uses to prevent criticism of its actions, including its strategic position, political leverage, and the distraction from the war it has recently launched against Iran. Perhaps most sinister is Israel's attempts to obfuscate their genocidal operation by allowing a miniscule amount of aid into the Gaza Strip. It should be understood that this trickle of aid does not keep Gaza alive, but merely condemns it to a slow death. Only international intervention against Israel will prevent this atrocity from being carried out to completion.

-Nathan Black

[Editor's note: Below are two additional entries from Samir's diaries. As you can see, there is a measurable deterioration in his personal health and that of his family. His writings are a clear indication of the dire situation facing Gaza.]

Diaries of Aziz – Two Years of Ashes and Hunger

Day 427 under the tent

Nothing wakes me up except the silence of fear… followed by my mother’s sigh and my injured father’s cough.

The tent groans like we do—empty of everything, even dignity.

Mosquitoes bite us every night, as if war wasn’t enough.

I open my eyes hesitantly: another day of nothingness begins.

 Endless lines

I stood in line for bread, then water. After three hours, I came back with a bag of dry, stiff loaves.

My mother looked at me and asked, “What should I cook today?”

I shrugged—I had no answer.

All I know is that I have to feed them… somehow.

 My father’s body

My father’s body is breaking down. Old wounds have returned. He groans at night and stays silent during the day.

No medicine. No doctor. And I am helpless.

I boil water and mix herbs… grandmother recipes have become our lifeline.

Did I tell him I’m scared for him? No. In this place, there’s no room for emotions.

 Firewood is precious

Today, I gathered some wood from the ruins of a destroyed house.

I trembled as I chopped it—

Not from cold, but from memory.

That wood was once a wall for a family like ours.

Now we burn it to eat, as if we're consuming ourselves.

 Hunger is silent, but cruel

We haven't eaten since yesterday. Just tea and a piece of bread each.

My mother slept hungry. My father didn’t ask for anything.

I feel guilty, because I have nothing—except patience.

 We want nothing but life

We don’t ask for much… just to live like people.

To eat without humiliation, to sleep without fear, to get treatment without begging.

But it seems these simplest rights have become distant dreams.

Diary | Gaza – Under Fire and Isolation

Date: Friday, June 14, 2025

By: Aziz

I don’t know how to begin, or how to describe how I feel as I write these words with the internet cut off again. Maybe no one will ever read this. Maybe our voices will never reach the world. But the pain inside me screams, searching for an exit… any window of light in this suffocating darkness.

The internet has been down for days now. We are completely cut off from the world, as if Gaza has been severed from the planet and thrown into hell. No one knows what’s happening here, and we don’t know what’s happening outside our walls of death. No messages. No news. Not even a whisper of hope.

The bombing doesn’t stop. Every day, a martyr falls. Or more. People leave their shelters in search of aid – some return wounded, many never return at all. It’s as if flour has become a death sentence, or a reward for those who survive. Life here is now a daily battle for survival… from hunger, from airstrikes, from despair.

My father can no longer walk. I do what I can to provide him with medicine and food, and to preserve his dignity in a time that has forgotten mercy. My sister cries herself to sleep out of hunger. My mother tries to bake us something from whatever scraps she can find. Prices are on fire, everything is scarce, and people are dying silently from starvation. Even silence now is terrifying.

Today I heard, on a small radio, that the war is expanding – that there’s a serious escalation with Iran. I felt like the world was lighting new fires while we’re still buried under the rubble of our old one. Who thinks about Gaza now? Who hears us? Who remembers that we’re still here – living in tents, among ruins, clinging to broken hopes?

I can’t even remember the taste of fruit anymore, or the sound of music, or the warmth of a family gathering without fear. I’ve forgotten what it feels like to receive a message, or read a headline that brings even the smallest piece of joy. Now, we live on one instinct: survival.

But despite it all… I write. Because even if the voice fades, its echo remains. And Gaza, even at its weakest, insists on staying alive.