On 29 December 2023, South Africa instituted proceedings against Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), alleging that Israel’s conduct in Gaza breaches its obligations under the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the “Genocide Convention”). Specifically, South Africa alleged that Israel is both committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, as well as failing to prevent or punish the direct and public incitement to genocide by senior Israeli officials and others. Specific conduct referenced includes killing Palestinians in Gaza; causing them serious bodily and mental harm; and inflicting on them conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction.
South Africa’s application requested the ICJ to indicate a series of provisional measures (or interim orders), including for Israel to immediately suspend its military operations in Gaza. Notably, South Africa’s application also detailed the “failure to provide or ensure essential food, water, medicine, fuel, shelter and other humanitarian assistance for the besieged and blockaded Palestinian people” and the sustained bombardment which forced “the evacuation of 1.9 million people or 85% of the population of Gaza from their homes and herd[ed] them into ever smaller areas, without adequate shelter, in which they continue to be attacked, killed and harmed.” Such conduct – amounting to starvation crimes – may form part of the underlying acts of genocide, by inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about a group’s physical destruction.
Today, the ICJ held public hearings on South Africa’s request and heard oral arguments from South Africa, with Israel’s intervention scheduled for tomorrow, 12 January. At this initial stage, the ICJ does not have to make a finding as to whether Israel’s conduct in Gaza actually amounts to genocide.[1] Rather, it may choose to impose any number of South Africa’s requested provisional measures, including by requesting Israel to cease the deprivation of access to adequate food, water, fuel, shelter, and sanitation.
The ICJ is not a criminal court and therefore does not have jurisdiction to try individuals accused of war crimes or crimes against humanity. GRC notes with extreme concern, however, that the underlying conduct referenced throughout South Africa’s application directly mirrors GRC’s own recent determination concerning the deepening humanitarian crisis: GRC has previously found that Israeli actions in Gaza bear all the hallmarks and indicators associated with the use of starvation as a method of warfare, including by depriving civilians of objects indispensable to their survival, impeding relief supplies, forced displacement, and targeting humanitarian and medical personnel and facilities, effectively impeding their capacity to deliver live-saving aid to vulnerable civilians.
South Africa’s application follows the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification’s latest report on 21 December 2023, finding catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity affecting civilians across the Gaza Strip, the key driver of which is Israeli ground operations, bombardment, and besiegement of Palestinian civilians, trapped in the enclave. The findings highlight that “[s]tarvation, death, destitution and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels are evident.”The IPC found that during the period of 24 November and 7 December, more than 90 percent of the population in Gaza was classified in IPC Phase 3 acute food insecurity or above. Conservative estimates approximate that 80 percent of the population is classified in Emergency IPC Phase 4 and Catastrophe IPC Phase 5, including at least 1.17 million people in Emergency and over half a million people (1 in 4 households) in Catastrophe.
“This is the highest share of people facing high levels of acute food insecurity that the IPC initiative has ever classified for any given area or country.”
To that end, GRC further welcomes the Security Council’s adoption of resolution 2720 on 22 December 2023, requesting the Secretary-General to appoint a Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for the Gaza Strip, and demanding the parties to the conflict to allow, facilitate, and enable the immediate, safe and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance at scale directly to Palestinian civilians.
As the humanitarian situation in Gaza continues to deteriorate at an outright alarming level, the Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza was poised to take up her post on 8 January. The urgency with which the international community must support the fulfilment of this vital role cannot be overstated. Even prior to the current escalation between Israel and Palestine, some 80 per cent of Gazan civilians were dependent on humanitarian aid. On 1 January, the World Food Programme (WFP) noted that, without unhindered humanitarian access, the risk of famine in Gaza was increasing by the hour. Meanwhile, humanitarian aid convoys and medical personnel known to and identifiable by the Israeli authorities continue to be attacked.
Additionally, Gaza’s overwhelmed healthcare system is now on the verge of complete collapse, with the intensification of communicable diseases exacerbated by mass displacement. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), regarding displaced residents living in shelters across Gaza, close to 180,000 are suffering from upper respiratory infections; there are 136,400 cases of diarrhoea (half among children under five-years-old); 55,400 cases of lice and scabies; 5,330 cases of chickenpox; 42,700 cases of skin rash (including 4,722 cases of impetigo); 4,683 cases of Acute Jaundice Syndrome; and 126 cases of meningitis. Only 9 out of 36 health facilities are (partially) functioning, while there are no functioning facilities in the north, due to the bombardment and destruction of hospital infrastructure and lack of medicine, medical personnel, fuel, and other medical supplies.
Moreover, since 11 October, the Gaza Strip has also been under a complete electricity blackout, after Israeli authorities cut off electricity and the fuel reserves serving Gaza’s sole power plant were depleted. Beyond impacting civilians who require fuel for cooking and warmth as winterisation needs become even more pressing, the humanitarian community is similarly struggling to conducts needs assessments without sustained access to electricity or fuel.
This is not the first time the ICJ has considered the use of starvation in an application for provisional measures. In 2020, The Gambia filed an application against Myanmar concerning allegations of genocide, noting in that case the “burning of homes or villages; destruction of lands and livestock, deprivation of food and other necessities of life, or any other deliberate infliction of conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of the Rohingya group in whole or in part”. The Court unanimously adopted provisional measures.
GRC reiterates and underscores that the several references made in South Africa’s application concerning the lack of essential food, water, medicine, fuel, shelter, and other humanitarian assistance remain extremely urgent, and that they appear to form a part of a deliberate and meticulously calculated use of starvation as a method of warfare. These include “causing widespread hunger, dehydration and starvation to besieged Palestinians in Gaza, through the impeding of sufficient humanitarian assistance, the cutting off of sufficient water, food, fuel and electricity, and the destruction of bakeries, mills, agricultural lands and other methods of production and sustenance” and “failing to provide and restricting the provision of adequate shelter, clothes, hygiene or sanitation to Palestinians in Gaza, including the 1.9 million internally displaced people” (para. 114).
GRC urges both the Israeli government and the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), as well as those States which exercise influence over them, including those providing financial and military assistance, to exercise restraint and cooperate fully with the newly appointed Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for the Gaza Strip, in order to allow, facilitate, and enable the immediate, safe, and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance at scale directly to Palestinian civilians. In the absence of a full and comprehensive ceasefire as called for by General Assembly resolution A/ES-10/L.27 of 12 December 2023, adherence to the basic tenets of international humanitarian law must be prioritised immediately, including for any starvation crimes that may be deemed to constitute underlying acts in the context of a genocide determination.
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Since 2017, Global Rights Compliance (GRC) has become the leading legal organisation on prohibiting, preventing, and seeking accountability for mass starvation and associated violations. We possess unrivalled expertise and granular knowledge of the crime of starvation, derived from a dedicated portfolio of analysis, accountability, and investigative work. GRC has conducted multiple starvation investigations with partners and pursued advocacy and accountability documentation accurately and sensitively with often unseen datasets and political nuance. Our principal geographic focus has been Syria, South Sudan, Yemen, and Tigray (Ethiopia), with a more recent focus on Ukraine. GRC’s Humanitarian Crisis Team is closely monitoring the unfolding and developing situation on the ground in Gaza and calls for an urgent independent investigation into the atrocities that are occurring with a critical need to collect and preserve evidence of these violations and crimes now. For more information on GRC’s starvation workstream, visit: https://starvationaccountability.org.
[1] See ICJ, The Gambia v. Myanmar, Request for the indication of provisional measures, Order of 23 January 2020, para. 56.