After more than 20 months of Israel using a blockade on humanitarian aid as a "method of war," as one leading human rights group said earlier this month, the United Nations human rights office said Tuesday that Israel-backed aid operations have also amounted to a "weaponization of food"—and constitute a war crime.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said at least 410 Palestinians have now been killed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) while trying to retrieve food aid from distribution points set up by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a U.S.- and Israel-backed group staffed by U.S. security forces.
The GHF has been opposed by the U.N. and humanitarian groups that have long served Palestinians in Gaza, with advocates warning the group's plan to require civilians to travel on foot across the war-torn enclave to retrieve food boxes at hubs guarded by the IDF violates basic principles of neutrality in humanitarian aid.
Thameen Al-Keetan, spokesperson for the OHCHR, said that after nearly a month in operation, the U.N. has determined that the "militarized humanitarian assistance mechanism is in contradiction with international standards on aid distribution."
"The weaponization of food for civilians, in addition to restricting or preventing their access to life-sustaining services, constitutes a war crime and, under certain circumstances, may constitute elements of other crimes under international law," said Al-Keetan.
The statement came after at least 51 Palestinians were killed at aid sites in the IDF's latest attacks on Tuesday. The killings were among those that brought the total death toll of Israel's assault on Gaza, which has been called a genocide by leading experts and human rights groups, past 56,000.
"Desperate, hungry people in Gaza continue to face the inhumane choice of either starving to death or risk being killed while trying to get food."
While the GHF's food boxes are "leaving unaddressed the critical needs of those who have so far survived," according to the latest update from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), hundreds of Palestinians have been either "shelled or shot" by the IDF while trying to reach GHF hubs.
Numerous reports have surfaced of Israeli soldiers shooting at crowds of Palestinians when they have deviated from "designated access routes" or moved toward the IDF at GHF distribution points.
At least 3,000 Palestinians have also been injured in attacks while trying to access aid.
"Desperate, hungry people in Gaza continue to face the inhumane choice of either starving to death or risk being killed while trying to get food," said the OHCHR.
Meanwhile, Jonathan Whittall, the head of office in the occupied Palestinian territories for the OCHA, noted that the U.N. and other experienced aid agencies stand ready to provide sufficient humanitarian aid to the enclave's more than 2 million people—1 in 5 of whom were facing imminent starvation last month when the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification released its latest assessment.
"It is weaponized hunger," said Whittall of the current conditions inflicted on Gaza by the Israeli government. "It is forced displacement. It's a death sentence for people just trying to survive. All combined, it appears to be the erasure of Palestinian life from Gaza."
The U.N. and other aid providers currently rely on Israel to facilitate all humanitarian relief missions, and over the weekend, said the OHCHR, only eight out of 16 operations were approved.
"Half of [the missions] were denied outright, hindering the tracking of water and fuel, the provision of nutrition services, and the retrieval of the bodies," said Alessandra Vellucci, director of information services at U.N. Geneva.
Al-Keetan toldReuters that the legal determination regarding whether Israel is guilty of a war crime related to its reported targeting of civilians at aid sites "needs to be made by a court of law."
South Africa has a case pending at the International Court of Justice regarding its allegation that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, as well as as a Hamas commander who is now dead, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The U.N.'s statements on Tuesday came a day after 15 rights groups wrote to the GHF, warning the privatized group that its contractors working with the IDF risk "aiding and abetting or otherwise being complicit in crimes under international law, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide," and could be liable in a court of law in the U.S. or internationally.
"By obliging starving, exhausted Palestinians to walk long distances through militarized zones, or by effectively forcing them to relocate in order to obtain food and aid under a system overseen by Israeli forces and U.S. private military contractors, the scheme creates an immediate risk of forced displacement that may violate the prohibition on forcible displacement of civilians," said the groups, including Al Haq, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.
"By instrumentalizing humanitarian aid for political or military ends," said the groups, "the scheme risks rendering its participants complicit in collective punishment, the starvation of civilians, and other acts prohibited under customary international law, the Geneva Conventions, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and the Genocide Convention."
