Infanticide at the heart of Gaza genocide

Arab News

22-07-2025

https://arab.news/cxrbr
With tens of Palestinian infants and children dying daily as a result of starvation — a direct outcome of a deliberate Israeli policy of denying more than 2 million Gazans unfettered access to food, water, baby formula, fuel and medication since March — the war on Gaza is entering its final stage: extermination or depopulation. The images of starving children are harrowing, but the world's inability to stop this human-made catastrophe is staggering and shameful. This multifarious tragedy is not the result of a natural disaster, but a war crime, a crime against humanity and a form of genocide that is a sanctioned Israeli government policy. It is indefensible.
The extermination of Gazans, whether by constant Israeli bombardment of homes, schools, hospitals, places of worship, shelters and tent camps or through other means, is now normalized. The Israeli blockade is a matter of fact. The killing of more than 20,000 children since Oct. 7, 2023, is a mere statistic. More than 70,000 children under the age of five are at risk of acute malnutrition within the year if the blockade and conflict persist, according to the UN.
Approximately 17,000 children are reported to be struggling with severe malnutrition amid medical shortages due to this engineered humanitarian crisis. Healthcare workers report that mothers are unable to breastfeed due to their malnutrition, forcing them to resort to unsafe feeding methods.
Press reports speak of elderly Gazans dropping in the streets or at Israeli-run aid distribution centers, which have become death traps, claiming the lives of more than 1,000 people in the past two months. Children have become an easy target at these centers, which are staffed by American and Israeli contractors. Western doctors who have served at the few remaining health centers and hospitals in Gaza speak of children sustaining bullet wounds in the head, torso, neck and legs.
With UN aid agencies declaring that their storage facilities are now empty across the beleaguered Strip, the number of children dying as a result of starvation will only increase daily. But we are yet to see a serious move on behalf of the UN Security Council, the Trump administration, the EU or the UK to order Israel to stop the carnage and open the borders so that aid can flow into Gaza. Monday's statement by the UK, France and more than 20 other countries will do nothing unless it is backed by action.
Israel is already facing genocide charges at the International Court of Justice. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister are wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. But the list of charges should not stop there. Israel is in clear and direct violation of a handful of international legal instruments that protect children in armed conflicts. These include the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, which establishes fundamental protections for civilians, including children, during times of war. Israel is also in violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted in 1989, which is the world's most widely ratified human rights treaty.
The UNSC has adopted several resolutions on this issue, particularly 1612 of 2005, which established monitoring and reporting mechanisms for grave violations against children in armed conflict.
Israel's use of collective punishment against Palestinians is not new. It has resorted to such criminal acts in the past, both in Gaza and the West Bank. As of this month, Israeli forces have killed at least 204 Palestinian children in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since Oct. 7, 2023, accounting for about 20 percent of all child fatalities in the West Bank since the year 2000.
Despite growing condemnation by UN agencies and human rights organizations of Israel's weaponization of food and its use of starvation as a state policy, there are no signs that Israel is about to roll back its policy. It is not coming under enough pressure from Western governments, especially the US, to end its illegal blockade and let aid into Gaza.
It is doubling down by expanding the areas under its military control, while doing nothing to address the spreading famine and deliberate starvation. It is moving ahead with the forced transfer of millions to Rafah, where it plans to build a concentration camp ahead of pushing Gazans to leave the Strip. On average, it is killing between 80 and 120 people daily, with the majority shot dead at food distribution centers under its control.
Israel's sense of impunity is on the rise, even when its military declares that displacing people by force is a war crime. It does not have to defend itself when images of starving children in Gaza go viral on social media. That task is handed to US lawmakers and the White House, which waste no time in imposing sanctions on international courts and UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for opposing the ongoing genocide.
While ceasefire talks in Doha are going nowhere, Netanyahu is using the stalemate to drive Gazans to the brink, to carry out their mass displacement. Even if a temporary truce is reached, there are no guarantees that Netanyahu will not resume the war, under false pretexts, to realize that final goal.
There are two key considerations to take into account. One, the rebuilding of Gaza — a multibillion-dollar task that will take decades to achieve — is unlikely to happen. If and when the war does stop, there will be an endemic humanitarian crisis in Gaza that will keep the world busy for years. Many children will die of disease and malnutrition. Tens of thousands of surviving children will need physical and psychological treatment for years to come. There are thousands of amputees and orphans with no surviving relatives.
With aid storage facilities now empty, the number of children dying as a result of starvation will only increase daily.
Osama Al-Sharif
More than half a million Gazan children have been without education for almost two years. What will happen to them, since more than 90 percent of Gaza's schools have been destroyed by Israel?
The second point concerns accountability. Israeli crimes in Gaza do not expire by limitation. Any deal reached in Gaza should not affect the right of every Palestinian victim, dead or alive, to seek justice at the highest international level. Israel's impunity has already broken the world order and undermined international humanitarian law. Any attempt to provide Israel with a safety net or bailout must be prevented at all costs.
That accountability should be extended to include all governments that have enabled Israel's genocide and infanticide in Gaza. Such accountability took place following the end of the Second World War, as Germany's war crimes were addressed. There is no reason for it not to happen again, this time with Israel facing its victims and accusers.