Weaponising Starvation
The UK's direct involvement in engineering famine in Gaza
On January 26th the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to stop its genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza. Israel has ignored the order as have its chief enablers, the US, UK and EU. Now the 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza are on the brink of famine.
A recent report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) says that between 8 December and 7 February, the people in Gaza are in crisis or worse, the highest proportion of a population facing acute food insecurity that the IPC has ever encountered for an area or country.
The starvation is deliberate.
The suspension of UNRWA funding by 16 western nations, provoked by unproven Israeli allegations that 12 UNRWA employees took part in the October 7th raids, has given Israel an excuse to prevent food shipments from the Ashdod port into Gaza for more than 1.1 million people.
Last month Israel said it would allow the shipments to proceed and the US praised the decision. But Israeli Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich blocked the shipment because it was destined for UNRWA, Gaza’s main aid group. The Israelis have hit UNRWA food convoys at least three times as they travel to areas identified by the UN as having the highest pockets of starvation and hunger.
As well as blocking food convoys, Israel has killed fishers attempting to provide food for their starving families. It has also destroyed nearly 30% of all cropland, 20% of all greenhouses and 500 irrigation wells. Hundreds of Israeli settlers have set up tents at the Kerem Shalom crossing, blocking aid trucks from entering Gaza.
UNICEF said the Gaza Strip is the “most dangerous place” in the world to be a child. 1 in 10 Palestinian children under the age of 5 in Gaza is acutely malnourished. Last week the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned that “infectious diseases are spreading. Hunger is weakening people’s ability to fight off disease. Without enough food, more people will become sick and die.”
The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention said, “Deliberate starvation of populations is a tactic that has been used by the most brutal militaries in history to attain strategic goals, and its criminalisation represents a keystone of international humanitarian law. These recent decisions to pull funding from UNRWA represent a concerted attack on that norm.” The Lemkin Institute, named for the Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin who coined the term “genocide”, said the 16 nations who have paused UNRWA funding have shifted “from potential complicity in genocide to direct involvement in engineered famine.”
The UK is one of those nations. While Scotland remains tethered to this withered, corrupt and failed state, we, too, are complicit.
What shame has been placed on the Scottish people by this weal UK Government pandering to the US and Isreal in this shameful and disgraceful conduct. The quicker we get out of this UK the better.
Excellent, but horrific letter Leah, there are details I have heard nowhere else. I am truly ashamed to be called British.