Latest news with #famine
The Guardian
3 hours ago
- Health
- The Guardian
Starvation in Gaza is destroying communities – and will leave generational scars
Starvation is not only killing Palestinians in Gaza one by one, but also destroying Palestinian society and inflicting permanent damage on bodies and minds, experts say. As hopes for a ceasefire rise, the threat from extreme hunger is particularly acute because Israel has continued to deploy food controls as a weapon against civilians during previous pauses in conventional fighting, and could do so again. Starvation forces the body to consume its own muscle and organs for energy, which can cause permanent injury, harms children's futures by stunting the growth of their bodies and minds, and may even damage the heath of survivors' children. It also destroys communities by turning people against each other in their desperation for food and forcing them to do shameful, humiliating or violent things to survive. Even if they recover physically, the trauma of having to choose between children, turn away relatives begging for food, sell their own bodies or a sister or a daughter for food, stays with them for life, famine experts say. 'You can approach starvation as a biological phenomenon experienced by individuals, but it is also a collective social experience,' said Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University, and author of Mass Starvation: the History and Future of Famine. 'Very often that societal element – the trauma, the shame, the loss of dignity, the violation of taboos, the breaking of social bonds – is more significant in the memory of the experience of survivors than the individual biological experience.' 'All these traumas are the reason why the Irish took almost 150 years before they could memorialise what they experienced in the 1840s. Those who inflict starvation are aware of this, they know that what they're doing is actually dismantling a society.' This 'sociology of starvation' was outlined by Raphael Lemkin, the lawyer and Holocaust survivor who coined the word genocide then campaigned for it to be recognised as a crime in international law, de Waal said. In writings during the second world war, Lemkin 'spent a lot of time describing rations, rationing as a way of undermining groups'. The social impact of starvation means an aggressor can use food controls to create a dynamic that de Waal describes as 'genocidal humanitarianism', where just enough calories are provided to prevent mass death, but extreme hunger 'destroys the meaning of their life as a group'. International experts have warned repeatedly during the war that Gaza is approaching the internationally recognised threshold for famine, measured by factors including rates of death and malnutrition. Chris Newton, senior analyst at International Crisis Group and an expert in famine and starvation as a weapon of war, said that even if that line was never crossed, the effect of spending long periods in a state of extreme hunger could not be fully reversed. 'This is not about a formal famine declaration or a special number of trucks or meals. It's about Israel's attempt to starve Gaza indefinitely without the rapid mass death from starvation and disease we call famine,' he said. 'This experiment cannot last for ever, though the consequences of starvation can.' One of the most visible signs of social breakdown in Gaza is the regular looting of aid trucks entering the territory, and the near daily shootings of people trying to get limited supplies from distribution centres operated by the secretive US and Israeli backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. 'Starvation breaks social order, and transforms governance into just one issue, who can feed people?' said Nour Abuzaid, senior researcher at Forensic Architecture, an agency that investigates human rights violations. 'If you can feed people, you can rule them. Because life has been reduced to a single question: What are we going to eat today?' Forensic Architecture has documented the structural features that make GHF centres so deadly by design, including their location in areas where the Israeli military has ordered civilians to evacuate, and routes to reach them that take civilians close to Israeli military outposts. Israel can continue to restrict food and channel it through GHF sites even during a pause in fighting with conventional weapons. 'This is exactly what happened during the previous ceasefire, which was still in place when Israel cut aid on 2 March,' Abuzaid said. If it does, the location and architecture of GHF sites mean killings can be expected to continue, she said, citing repeated shootings of civilians who approached a 'buffer zone' established by Israeli forces. 'There were over 100 people who were killed during the ceasefire just because they were in proximity to the buffer zone,' Abuzaid said. 'So if the model based on (GHF) ration stations placed in or near the buffer zone continues [to be used] we should expect civilian casualties to continue.' Controls on food also mean Israel 'can actively destroy civil order even during a ceasefire', she added. De Waal said Israel's control of land and sea borders meant it had full oversight of how much food entered the territory, and UN data providing detailed information about malnutrition among Palestinians meant its leaders could not say starvation there was an unforeseen outcome. 'You can't starve anyone by accident, you can shoot someone by accident but … in inflicting starvation [you] have 60 or 80 days in which [you] can remedy the error,' he said. Forensic Architecture has concluded that Israel's restrictions on food entering Gaza are genocidal in two different ways, said its director, Eyal Weizman. 'Obviously, to intentionally starve people to death is genocidal, and starvation is also used in order to break society. Starvation is the means and starvation is the end.' 'If this system remains in place during any upcoming ceasefire, with control over every calorie and anyone entitled to it, Israel will continue to break Palestinian society,' Weizman said. 'The genocide might continue during a ceasefire.'
LBCI
5 hours ago
- Health
- LBCI
France says Israel blockade led to 'risk of famine' in Gaza
France's foreign ministry said Wednesday malnutrition and the "risk of famine" in war-torn Gaza was the "result of the blockade imposed by Israel" on the Palestinian territory. Israel's ramping up of military operations in Gaza this week "is accelerating the deterioration of the humanitarian situation, marked by malnutrition and the risk of famine. This situation is the result of the blockade imposed by Israel," a spokesman said. AFP
LBCI
5 hours ago
- Politics
- LBCI
Israel denies causing 'famine' in Gaza, blames Hamas
The Israeli government on Wednesday said it was not responsible for a chronic shortage of food in Gaza, instead accusing Palestinian militants Hamas of deliberately creating a crisis. "In Gaza today, there is no famine caused by Israel," government spokesman David Mencer told reporters after more than 100 aid and rights groups warned of "mass starvation" and urged Israel to unblock aid. "Hamas engineers a man-made shortage," Mencer added, accusing the militants of preventing food from being distributed and looting aid for themselves. AFP
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Health
- Yahoo
UN body says Israeli forces have killed over 1,000 aid-seekers in Gaza since May, as hunger worsens
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since May while trying to get food in the Gaza Strip, mostly near aid sites run by an American contractor, the U.N. human rights office said Tuesday. Meanwhile, Israeli strikes killed 25 people across Gaza, according to local health officials. Desperation is mounting in the Palestinian territory of more than 2 million, which experts say is at risk of famine because of Israel's blockade and nearly two-year offensive. A breakdown of law and order has led to widespread looting and contributed to chaos and violence around aid deliveries. Israel accuses Hamas of siphoning off aid — without providing evidence of widespread diversion — and blames U.N. agencies for failing to deliver food it has allowed in. The military says it has only fired warning shots near aid sites. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an Israeli-backed American contractor, rejected what it said were 'false and exaggerated statistics' from the United Nations. The Gaza Health Ministry, which is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals, said Tuesday that 80 children have died from starvation since the beginning of the war, while 21 adults have since Sunday. The ministry only recently began tracking deaths from malnutrition in adults. The deaths could not be independently verified, but U.N. officials and major international aid groups say the conditions for starvation exist in Gaza. During hunger crises, people can die from malnutrition or from common illnesses or injuries that the body is not strong enough to fight. Israel eased a 2 1/2-month blockade in May, allowing a trickle of aid in through the longstanding U.N.-run system and the newly created GHF. Aid groups say it's not nearly enough. 'I do it for my children' Dozens of Palestinians lined up Tuesday outside a charity kitchen in Gaza City, hoping for a bowl of watery tomato soup. The lucky ones got small chunks of eggplant. As supplies ran out, people holding pots pushed and shoved to get to the front. Nadia Mdoukh, a pregnant woman who was displaced from her home and lives in a tent with her husband and three children, said she worries about being shoved or trampled on, and about heat stroke as daytime temperatures hover above 90 F (32 C). 'I do it for my children," she said. 'This is famine — there is no bread or flour.' The U.N. World Food Program says Gaza's hunger crisis has reached 'new and astonishing levels of desperation.' Ross Smith, the agency's director for emergencies, told reporters Monday that nearly 100,000 women and children are suffering from severe acute malnutrition, and a third of Gaza's population is going without food for multiple days in a row. MedGlobal, a charity working in Gaza, said five children as young as 3 months had died from starvation in the past three days. 'This is a deliberate and human-made disaster," said Joseph Belliveau, its executive director. "Those children died because there is not enough food in Gaza and not enough medicines, including IV fluids and therapeutic formula, to revive them.' The charity said food is in such short supply that its own staff members suffer dizziness and headaches. Aid delivery model criticized Of the 1,054 people killed while trying to get food since late May, 766 were killed while heading to sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, according to the U.N. human rights office. The others were killed when gunfire erupted around U.N. convoys or aid sites. Thameen al-Kheetan, a spokesperson for the U.N. rights office, says its figures come from 'multiple reliable sources on the ground,' including medics, humanitarian and human rights organizations. He said the numbers were still being verified according to the office's strict methodology. Palestinian witnesses and health officials say Israeli forces regularly fire toward crowds of thousands of people heading to the GHF sites. The military says it has only fired warning shots, and GHF says its armed contractors have only fired into the air on a few occasions to try to prevent stampedes. A joint statement from 28 Western-aligned countries on Monday condemned the 'the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians.' 'The Israeli government's aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity,' read the statement, which was signed by the United Kingdom, France and other countries friendly to Israel. 'The Israeli government's denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable.' Israel and the United States rejected the statement, blaming Hamas for prolonging the war by not accepting Israeli terms for a ceasefire and the release of hostages abducted in the militant-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which triggered the fighting. Hamas has said it will release the remaining hostages only in return for a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal. Israel says it will keep fighting until Hamas has been defeated or disarmed. Strikes on tents sheltering the displaced Israeli strikes killed at least 25 people Tuesday across Gaza, according to local health officials. One strike hit tents sheltering displaced people in the built-up seaside Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, killing at least 12 people, according to Shifa Hospital, which received the casualties. The Israeli military said that it wasn't aware of such a strike by its forces. The dead included three women and three children, the hospital director, Dr. Mohamed Abu Selmiya, told The Associated Press. Thirty-eight other Palestinians were wounded, he said. An overnight strike that hit crowds of Palestinians waiting for aid trucks in Gaza City killed eight, hospitals said. At least 118 were wounded, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent. 'A bag of flour covered in blood and death," said Mohammed Issam, who was in the crowd and said some people were run over by trucks in the chaos. "How long will this humiliation continue?' The Israeli military had no immediate comment on that strike. Israel blames the deaths of Palestinian civilians on Hamas, because the militants operate in densely populated areas. Israel renewed its offensive in March with a surprise bombardment after ending an earlier ceasefire. Talks on another truce have dragged on for weeks despite pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump. Hamas-led militants abducted 251 people in the Oct. 7 attack, and killed around 1,200 people. Fewer than half of the 50 hostages still in Gaza are believed to be alive. More than 59,000 Palestinians have been killed during the war, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. Its count doesn't distinguish between militants and civilians, but the ministry says that more than half of the dead are women and children. The U.N. and other international organizations see it as the most reliable source of data on casualties. ___ This story was first published on July 22, 2025. It was updated on July 23, 2025, to correct that all 101 deaths from starvation reported by the Gaza Health Ministry were not in recent days. They include 80 children who have died since the beginning of the war, and 21 adults who have died since Sunday. ___ Magdy reported from Cairo, and Goldenberg from Jerusalem. Associated Press writer Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report. ___ Follow AP's war coverage at Wafaa Shurafa, Samy Magdy And Tia Goldenberg, The Associated Press
Al Jazeera
7 hours ago
- General
- Al Jazeera
‘Flour, fire and fear as I try to parent in a starving Gaza'
Deir el-Balah, Gaza – 'There is no voice louder than hunger,' the Arabic proverb goes. Now it has become a painful truth surrounding us, drawing closer with each passing day. I never imagined that hunger could be more terrifying than the bombs and killing. This weapon caught us off-guard, something we never thought would be more brutal than anything else we've faced in this endless war. It's been four months without a single full meal for my family, nothing that meets even the basic needs on Maslow's hierarchy. My days revolve around hunger. One sister calls to ask about flour, and the other sends a message saying all they have is lentils. My brother returns empty-handed from his long search for food for his two kids. We woke up one day to the sound of our neighbour screaming in frustration. 'I'm going mad. What's happening? I have money, but there's nothing to buy,' she said when I came out to calm her down. My phone doesn't stop ringing. The calls are from crying women I met during fieldwork in displacement camps: 'Ms Maram? Can you help with anything? A kilo of flour or something? … We haven't eaten in days.' This sentence echoes in my ears: 'We haven't eaten in days.' It is no longer shocking. Famine is marching forwards in broad daylight, shamelessly in a world so proud of its 'humanity'. A second birthday amid scarcity Iyas has woken up asking for a cup of milk today, his birthday. He has turned two in the middle of a war. I wrote him a piece on his birthday last year, but now I look back and think: 'At least there was food!' A simple request from a child for some milk spins me into a whirlwind. I'd already held a quiet funeral inside me weeks ago for the last of the milk, then rice, sugar, bulgur, beans – the list goes on. Only four bags of pasta, five of lentils and 10 precious kilos (22lb) of flour remain – enough for two weeks if I ration tightly, and even that makes me luckier than most in Gaza. Flour means bread – white gold people are dying for every single day. Every cup I add to the dough feels heavy. I whisper to myself: 'Just two cups'. Then I add a little more, then a bit more, hoping to somehow stretch these little bits into enough bread to last the day. But I know I'm fooling myself. My mind knows this won't be enough to quell hunger; it keeps warning me how little flour we have left. I don't know what I'm writing any more. But this is just what I'm living, what I wake up and fall asleep to. What horrors remain? I now think back on the morning bread-making routine I used to resent. As a working mother, I once hated that long process imposed by war, which made me miss being able to buy bread from the bakery. But now, that routine is sacred. Thousands of people across Gaza wish they could knead bread without end. I am one of them. Now I handle flour with reverence, knead gently, cut the loaves carefully, roll them out and send them off to bake in the public clay oven with my husband, who lovingly balances the tray on his head. A full hour under the sun at the oven just to get a warm loaf of bread, and we're among the 'lucky' ones. We are kings, the wealthy. These 'miserable' daily routines have become unattainable dreams for hundreds of thousands in Gaza. Everyone is starving. Is it possible that this war still has more horrors in store? We complained about displacement. Then our homes were bombed. We never returned. We complained about the burdens of cooking over a fire, making bread, handwashing clothes and hauling water. Now those 'burdens' feel like luxuries. There's no water. No soap. No supplies. Iyas's latest challenge Two weeks ago, while being consumed by thoughts of how to stretch out the last handfuls of flour, another challenge appeared: potty training Iyas. We ran out of diapers. My husband searched everywhere, returning empty-handed. 'No diapers, no baby formula, nothing at all.' Just like that. My God, how strange and harsh this child's early years have been. War has imposed so many changes that we could not protect him from. His first year was an endless hunt for baby formula, clean water and diapers. Then came famine, and he grew up without eggs, fresh milk, vegetables, fruit or any of the basic nutrients a toddler needs. I fought on, sacrificing what little health I had to continue breastfeeding until now. It was difficult, especially while undernourished myself and trying to keep working, but what else could I do? The thought of raising a child with no nutrients at this critical stage is unbearable. And so my little hero woke up one morning to the challenge of ditching diapers. I pitied him, staring in fear at the toilet seat, which looked to him like a deep tunnel or cave he might fall into. It took us two whole days to find a child's seat for the toilet. Every day was filled with training accidents, signs he wasn't ready. The hours I spent sitting by the toilet, encouraging him, were exhausting and frustrating. Potty training is a natural phase that should come when the child is ready. Why am I and so many other mothers here forced to go through it like this, under mental strain, with a child who I haven't had a chance to prepare? So I fall asleep thinking about how much food we have left and wake up to rush my child to the toilet. Rage and anxiety build up as I try to manage our precious water supply as soiled clothes pile up from the daily accidents. Then came the expulsion orders in Deir el-Balah. A fresh slap. The danger is growing as Israeli tanks creep closer. And here I am: hungry, out of diapers, raising my voice at a child who can't understand while the shelling booms around us. Why must we live like this, spirits disintegrating every day as we wait for the next disaster? Many have resorted to begging. Some have chosen death for a piece of bread or a handful of flour. Others stay home, waiting for the tanks to arrive. Many, like me, are simply waiting their turn to join the ranks of the starving without knowing what the end will look like. They used to say time in Gaza is made of blood. But now, it's blood, tears and hunger.
