UN expert slams Netanyahu's 'starvation campaign' in Gaza

The UN independent investigator on the right to food has accused Israel of carrying out a "starvation campaign" against Palestinians during its genocidal war in besieged Gaza.

In a report this week, investigator Michael Fakhri said Tel Aviv began to block all food, water, fuel, and other supplies into the blockaded Gaza, just two days after Hamas' surprise raid in southern Israel's military sites and settlements.

Fakhri said limited aid initially went mostly to southern and central Gaza, not to the north where Israel had ordered Palestinians to go.

A professor at the University of Oregon School of Law, Fakhri was appointed by the UN Human Rights Council as the investigator, or special rapporteur, on the right to food and assumed the role in 2020.

"By December, Palestinians in Gaza made up 80 percent of the people in the world experiencing famine or catastrophic hunger," Fakhri said.

"Never in post-war history had a population been made to go hungry so quickly and so completely as was the case for the 2.3 million Palestinians living in Gaza."

Fakhri made the allegations in a report to the UN General Assembly circulated on Thursday.

He claimed it goes back 76 years to Israel's creation and its continuous expulsion of Palestinians.

Since then, he accused Israel of deploying "the full range of techniques of hunger and starvation against the Palestinians, perfecting the degree of control, suffering and death that it can cause through food systems."

'Beyond catastrophic'

Since the Israeli war in Gaza began, Fakhri said he has received direct reports of the destruction of the territory's food system, including farmland and fishing, which also has been documented and recognised by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation and others.

"Israel then used humanitarian aid as a political and military weapon to harm and kill the Palestinian people in Gaza," he said.

Israel's hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said accusations of Israel limiting humanitarian aid were not true.

Following intense international pressure — especially from United States — Netanyahu's regime has gradually opened several border crossings for tightly controlled deliveries.

At Wednesday's press conference, Netanyahu cited figures from COGAT, Israel’s military body overseeing aid entry into Gaza, that 700,000 tonnes of food items had been allowed into Gaza since the war began 11 months ago.

Nearly half of that food aid in recent months has been brought in by the private sector for sale in Gaza’s markets, according to COGAT figures. However, many Palestinians in Gaza say they struggle to afford enough food for their families.

Israel allows trucks of aid through two small crossings in the north and one main crossing in the south, Karem Abu Salem.

However, since Israel's invasion of the southern city of Rafah in May, the UN and other aid agencies say they struggle to reach the Gaza side of Karem Abu Salem to retrieve the aid for free distribution because Israel's military invasion make it too dangerous.

Many times aid trucks were looted or set on fire on the way to Gaza by illegal Zionists in cooperation with Israeli military.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric called the humanitarian situation in Gaza "beyond catastrophic," with more than 1 million Palestinians not receiving any food rations in August and a 35% drop in people getting daily cooked meals.

The UN humanitarian office attributed the sharp reduction in cooked meals partly to multiple evacuation orders from Israeli security forces that forced at least 70 of 130 kitchens to either suspend or relocate their operations, he said Thursday.

The UN's humanitarian partners also lacked sufficient food supplies to meet requirements for the second straight month in central and southern Gaza, Dujarric added.

He said critical shortages of supplies in Gaza are stem from hostilities, insecurity, damaged roads, and Israeli obstacles and access limitations.