It looks like famine

JVL Introduction

Just as it will be up to the ICJ to decide in a few years time if there is a genocide in Gaza, so too the decision as to whether there is actually a famine in Gaza is in the hands of other agencies.

It is usually the government of a country that declares a famine but who that is in Gaza is in question.

Meanwhile, we have to decide on the language we use.

We’re comfortable using the word famine to describe a situation where cause of death is now increasingly given as starvation (actually, we’re not comfortable at all, but deeply distressed and feel we have to name the reality unambiguously).

And the threat of famine seems to be another weapon consciously deployed by Israel, in what the ICJ, for now, has called a “catastrophic humanitarian situation”(para 72)  requiring provisional measures to avert the “real and imminent risk that irreparable prejudice” (para 74) will be caused to the rights of Palestinians under siege i.e. it was at least “plausible” (para 54) that the Palestinians of Gaza required protection from acts of genocide – a grave and damning assessment in its own right.

From where we stand it looks very much like famine is already raging in the land, and genocide a reality – terms we will use provisionally on this website while waiting for the relevant agencies to catch us.

RK

This article was originally published by New York Times on Sun 3 Mar 2024. Read the original here.