CAIR Echoes Israeli Human Rights Group’s Condemnation of Israel’s ‘Declared Policy’ of Starvation in Gaza

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today joined the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem in condemning the far-right government of Israel’s “declared policy” of starvation in Gaza.

B’Tselem, or the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, said the starvation of people in Gaza is “not a byproduct of war but a direct result of Israel’s declared policy.”

The organization also said: “Everyone in Gaza is going hungry. About 2.2 million people are surviving day by day on almost nothing, routinely going without meals.”

“The images of children begging for food, people waiting in long lines for paltry handouts and hungry residents charging at aid trucks are already inconceivable. The horror is growing by the minute, and the danger of famine is real. Still, Israel persists in its policy.

“Changing this policy is not just a moral obligation. Allowing food into the Gaza Strip is not an act of kindness but a positive obligation under international humanitarian law: starvation as a method of warfare is prohibited.”

Yesterday, CAIR called on the Biden administration to condemn the far-right Israeli government’s latest targeted murder of journalists in Gaza.

There is growing domestic and international outrage over Israel’s mass killing of more than 23,000 people in Gaza – mostly women and children – including hundreds of UN workers, journalists and medical personnel. One monitoring group estimates that more than 90,000 people, about 4 percent of the population in Gaza, are dead, wounded or missing. More than 10 children lose limbs every day in Gaza.

In a statement, CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said:

“It is unconscionable that the Biden administration continues to support the far-right Israeli government’s declared policy of starvation of the entire population of Gaza, a gruesome tactic that is a clear violation of international law. The shocking images of starving women and children in Gaza will remain forever as a stain on human history.”

CAIR said the Biden administration must end its “complicity in the Netanyahu government’s genocide” after reports surfaced of Israeli desecration of Gaza cemeteries and civilian bodies scattered in the street.

On Friday, CAIR condemned the latest “Israeli war crimes of the day,” including reports of “torture camps” for detained Gazans, summary executions of Palestinian families and the deliberate targeting of healthcare workers.

The U.N. humanitarian chief is describing Gaza as “uninhabitable,” with almost 90 percent of the population displaced and facing Israeli-imposed starvation. Far-right Israeli government officials are openly calling for ethnic cleansing.

South Africa has brought a case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ, or World Court) accusing Israel of genocide.