Israel Waging 'Deliberate Campaign of Starvation' in Gaza: Amnesty

Amnesty International on Monday published new testimonies of Palestinians suffering from Israel's "systemic and intentional" campaign of starvation in the Gaza Strip, where hundreds of people—including more than 100 children—have died of malnutrition over 682 days of US-backed genocide.

Israel "is carrying out a deliberate campaign of starvation in the occupied Gaza Strip, systematically destroying the health, well-being, and social fabric of Palestinian life," Amnesty said in an introduction to the testimonies of starved and forcibly displaced civilians in the embattled enclave.

Amnesty said that the victims' accounts underscore the group's "repeated findings that the deadly combination of hunger and disease is not an unfortunate byproduct of Israel's military operations."

"It is the intended outcome of plans and policies that Israel has designed and implemented, over the past 22 months, to deliberately inflict on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction—which is part and parcel of Israel's ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza," the group added. The statement used language found in the treaty under which the International Court of Justice is currently determining whether Israel is committing the crime of genocide.

Among the 19 Palestinians interviewed by Amnesty are Hadeel, a 28-year-old pregnant mother of two, who said, "I fear miscarriage, but I also think about my baby: I panic just thinking about the potential impact of my own hunger on the baby's health, its weight, whether it will have [birth defects], and even if the baby is born healthy, what life awaits it, amidst displacement, bombs, tents."

Aziza, age 75, told Amnesty: "I feel like I have become a burden on my family. When we were displaced, they had to push me on a wheelchair. With toilet queues extremely long in the camp where we stay, I need adult diapers, which are extremely expensive. I need medication for diabetes, blood pressure, and a heart condition, and have had to take medicine which has expired."

Nahed, who is 66 yearsc old, said that "people I knew were almost unrecognizable" due to the effects of famine, and that "the experience of hunger and war has changed Gaza completely."

Adding that the desperate scramble for food "has denied people their humanity," Nahed described what she saw at an aid distribution site. Thousands of Palestinians have been killed or wounded while seeking aid, including more than 850 people slain at or near sites run by the US-based Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) whistleblowers have said they were ordered to fire live bullets and artillery shells into crowds of desperate aid-seekers, even when they posed no security threat.

"I had to go there because I have nobody to look after me," Nahed explained. "I saw with my own eyes people carrying bags of flour stained with the blood of those who had just been shot."

One emergency doctor at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City—which has endured multiple IDF attacks, including the alleged execution of children in and around the facility—told Amnesty that many patients would be leading "reasonable lives" were it not for the "combination of starvation, destruction, and depletion of the healthcare system, unsanitary conditions, and multiple displacements under inhumane conditions."

Referring to Israel's imminent US-backed reoccupation of Gaza and plan to ethnically cleanse 1 million Palestinians from in and around Gaza City, Erika Guevara Rosas—Amnesty's senior director of research, advocacy, policy, and campaigns—said Monday that "as Israeli authorities threaten to launch a full-scale ground invasion of Gaza City, the testimonies we have collected are far more than accounts of suffering, they are a searing indictment of an international system that has granted Israel a license to torment Palestinians with near-total impunity for decades."

Such impunity was implicit in a recording broadcast on an Israeli news channel Sunday in which former IDF Gen. Aharon Haliva said that for every Israeli killed during the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, "50 Palestinians must die," and "it doesn't matter" if "they are children."

Guevara Rosas continued:

To even begin reversing the devastating consequences of Israel's inhumane policies and actions, which have made mass starvation a grim reality in Gaza, there must be an immediate, unconditional lifting of the blockade and a sustained ceasefire. The impact of Israel's blockade and its ongoing genocide on civilians, particularly on children, people with disabilities, those with chronic illnesses, older people, and pregnant and breastfeeding women is catastrophic and cannot be undone by simply increasing the number of aid trucks or restoring performative, ineffective, and dangerous airdrops of aid.

"In the face of the horrors Israel is inflicting on the Palestinian population in Gaza, the international community, particularly Israel's allies... must uphold their moral and legal obligations to bring an end to Israel's ongoing genocide," Guevara Rosas added. "States must urgently suspend all arms transfers, adopt targeted sanctions, and terminate any engagement with Israeli entities when this contributes to Israel's genocide against Palestinians in Gaza."

The new Amnesty report came as the Gaza Health Ministry said the Palestinian death toll from Israel's 22-month annihilation and siege of the strip topped 62,000—mostly women and children—although experts say the actual toll is likely far higher. The ministry also said Monday that at least 263 people, including 112 children, have starved to death since October 2023.

Israeli leaders including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes including murder and forced starvation—deny Gazans are starving. However, even as staunch a supporter as US Vice President JD Vance has acknowledged that "little kids... are clearly starving to death" in Gaza.