Yet again, humanitarians demand action to stop Israel starving Palestinians
JVL Introduction
The authors of this article are among the legions of medical and humanitarian individuals and organisations who have called repeatedly for Israel to cease its genocidal policies that are killing Palestinians in their tens of thousands.
Starvation is one of those deliberate policies, a particularly horrific form of violence “distinguished as a specific war crime in the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.”
It is made possible by “our collective inaction”, the authors say.
“As physicians who have worked in Gaza during Israel’s occupation, blockade, repeated military assaults, and now genocide, we hold complicit every state that continues to actively and passively support Israel.
“Those who starve others must be held accountable for their crimes.”
NOTE: As we were preparing to upload this article, yet another desperate plea landed in our inbox from OCHA, the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, crying out for an end to the Israeli blockade that is starving civilians subjected to collective punishment. It concludes:
To the Israeli authorities, and those who can still reason with them, we say again: lift this brutal blockade. Let humanitarians save lives.
To the civilians left unprotected, no apology can suffice. But I am truly sorry that we are unable to move the international community to prevent this injustice. We won’t give up, even if the world has given you every reason to give up on us.
NWI
This article was originally published by Middle East Eye on Thu 1 May 2025. Read the original here.
Israel is starving Gaza to death, and still the world does nothing
Only immediate and concerted action will protect the Palestinian people from Israel’s intensifying campaign of genocidal eradication
Loading article text…
how can we have voices representing the fact that it isn’t just israel? the british are complicit. as a british citizen i have no voice…but what about calling the leadership out directly in the articles published by jvl? we are not sufficiently represented in any way by anybody and it’s so urgent. it’s beyond urgent!
Starmer must be made to stop the U.K. supporting and arming Israel, a terrorist state led by criminals.
Netanyahu and his fascist buddies would undoubtedly let every living soul in Gaza starve to death one by one to the very last one, and thoroughly enjoy every single moment of it, as they have the last eighteen months of slaughter and destruction and carnage. These people are really REALLY sick, twisted, deranged and demented mega-sadistic psychopaths. And totally evil!
The Israeli government’s behaviour is very PECULIAR right now (as well as vicious and recklessly unlawful).
They didn’t even try to defend Israel’s actions during last week’s ICJ hearings of the case against them. Forty nations put legal arguments in that case so Israel’s failure to put forward ANY defence was a global public relations “own goal” as well as a disastrous legal tactic.
This odd behaviour would make marginally more sense if the Israeli government still hopes they’re immune from the potential legal consequences of their actions.
By contrast, the IDF and soldiers’ family members are worried. The lawyers seeking to prosecute alleged war crimes offenders outside Israel haven’t yet succeeded but they have time on their side, are globally active and are well-supported.
The Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF) claim today, for example, that following a year’s investigation they’ve tracked down the military unit and its commander who were responsible for killing Hind, her family, and the two medics who tried to save her. They name the Brigade and the Lieutenant Colonel. They say they know the names of the field commanders and operational officers involved and where they were when the killing was done. They’ve filed the war crimes complaint with the ICC, initially going after the Lieutenant Colonel but intending to prosecute every officer involved in these killings — “those who gave the orders, those who fired, those who covered it up, and those who let it happen”.