Following the devastating attacks by Hamas against Israel on 7 October, Israeli Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, announced a complete siege of the Gaza Strip: “There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel – everything will be closed.” The World Food Program (WFP) warned that shops inside Gaza held a maximum of one month’s food supply, which was likely depleting more rapidly than usual as civilians feared a prolonged war. According to the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), without supplies brought in immediately, UNRWA and aid workers would be unable to continue humanitarian operations.
The population of Gaza is primarily civilian in character and home to some two million residents, half of whom are children. The strengthened siege is set against a background of perennial violence, in which Gazan civilians have endured over 16 years of blockade on land, air, and sea, characterised by restrictions on the imports of basic goods as well as the severe deprivation of fundamental rights, including the arbitrary denial of freedom of movement in and out of Gaza. This has led to the increasingly deepened isolation of the Gaza Strip from the outside world, and the unenviable moniker of being “the world’s largest open-air prison.” Furthermore, this current escalation in hostilities involves the shockingly dehumanising language of a fight “against human animals”.
At a minimum, parties to the conflict are obligated to respect article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions, as well as customary international humanitarian law. Customary international humanitarian law includes the obligation to refrain from attacking, destroying, removing, or rendering useless objects indispensable to the survival of a civilian population. Such objects include food and water, but also medical care and supplies, electricity, and fuel, notably when the latter are necessary to access other indispensable objects in a particular context. Medical and humanitarian personnel must also be respected and protected. The deliberate use of starvation as a method of warfare of civilians is also a war crime under the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) Rome Statute in both international and non-international armed conflicts. With Palestine having deposited an instrument of accession with the ICC, the Court has jurisdiction over crimes committed on its territory, including those which may amount to crimes against humanity.
The declared siege has already impacted access to food and water. Farmers are largely unable to access their land due to displacement, while a full electricity blackout following Israel’s halt of electricity and fuel to Gaza prevents the use of necessary agricultural irrigation and machinery to tend to livestock or land. By 15 October, only one out of five flour mills were functional, risking the depletion of limited wheat flour reserves. Lack of access to potable drinking water, a critical issue prior to the announcement of the strengthening of the siege, is further compounded: 96 per cent of water in Gaza is not fit for human consumption. Some 102 official IDP shelters report that water reserves are finished. Most of the population is resorting to non-potable water sources, dramatically increasing the risk of highly infectious diseases, such as cholera, with the entire population of the Gaza Strip now at imminent risk of infectious disease outbreak and death owing to the lack of water. On 18 October, a single water line was opened in the south of the Gaza for three hours: merely 14 per cent of the population was able to benefit from this three-hour window.
The siege has also directly impacted medical care, including life-saving medical treatments. Only days after the complete siege was declared, the World Health Organization (WHO) had announced that a lack of medical supplies was endangering patients, with most supplies pre-positioned by the WHO having been consumed. Since then, at least 24 healthcare facilities in the Gaza Strip have come under attack, with at least 12 healthcare workers killed and 20 others injured. As at 22 October, an additional 35 UNRWA staff aid workers had been killed. Furthermore, medical facilities are struggling to operate without power, or the fuel needed to deploy emergency electricity generators. The result, as described by Médecins sans Frontières, is that “many patients will die – especially those in intensive care, neonatology and on respiratory support machines”.
It is deeply concerning that the closure by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) of the single commercial crossing into Gaza has precluded the passage of all goods essential for survival. On 23 October, the Rafah crossing bordering Egypt was opened for the third day, though only allowing for the entry of 20 trucks carrying food, water, and medical supplies. This was equivalent to four per cent of the daily average volume of commodities entering Gaza prior to the current hostilities. The aid did not include the fuel required to power hospitals and water facilities. Already by 16 October, UNRWA had stated that fuel reserves at all hospitals across Gaza were only expected to last for an additional 24 hours. Despite international humanitarian law obligating all parties to allow for the passage of humanitarian aid, the negligible amounts of aid entering Gaza remain wholly inadequate to sustain the beleaguered civilian population.
The foregoing picture bears the hallmarks of the use of starvation as a method of warfare. In conducting its operations, Israeli forces must abide by the rules of international humanitarian law, including on the protection of civilians, the prohibition of starvation as a method of warfare, allowing and facilitating the rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief for civilians in need, and the prohibition of collective punishment.
Global Rights Compliance is an international legal foundation established in 2013 with a mission to enable people and communities to achieve justice through the innovative application of international law. GRC is specialised in on-the-ground international humanitarian law (IHL), international criminal law (ICL) and human rights issues in conflict-affected and high-risk areas around the world, working to identify, prevent, address and mitigate adverse IHL and human rights impacts. Since 2017, GRC has become the leading legal organization 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 and Yemen, Tigray, Ethiopia with a more recent focus on Ukraine.
For more information on GRC’s starvation workstream, visit: https://starvationaccountability.org