Famine As a Weapon: How Israel is Starving Gaza Into Silence

Today, Gaza’s Health Ministry confirmed 212 deaths from starvation, including 98 children. This is not the work of failed rains bur it is the result of a calculated policy.

From the start of recent war, Israel’s leaders made their intentions plain. On 9 October 2023, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant announced a “complete siege” of Gaza: “No electricity, no food, no fuel—everything is closed.” Then-Energy Minister Israel Katz described humanitarian supplies as “one of the main pressure levers.” National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir was blunter: “No grain, no meds, no mercy.”

The famine now unfolding is the predictable result of sealing 2.3 million people off from food, medicine, and fuel. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification reports 470,000 Palestinians in ‘catastrophic’ conditions (IPC Phase 5)—the final stage before mass death. In Gaza City, UNICEF says acute malnutrition among children under five has quadrupled in two months to 16.5 percent. In July alone, 74 people died of malnutrition, including 24 children under five.

This is not the first time Israel has used hunger as leverage. In the late 2000s, officials admitted to calculating daily caloric limits for Palestanians—enough to prevent visible famine but too little for a dignified life. That policy has now been replaced by outright denial of survival essentials.

Starvation here serves a dual purpose: punishment and displacement. In October 2023, a leaked Israeli Ministry of Intelligence document outlined the “preferred scenario” of moving Gaza’s population into Egypt’s Sinai, with a buffer zone to prevent return. The method was blunt make Gaza unlivable. Hunger is central to that plan, so if bombs don’t drive you out, starvation will.

Inside Gaza’s collapsing hospitals, this strategy is written on children’s bodies. Aid workers describe infants too weak to cry, their systems unable to absorb even rehydration salts. Mothers, malnourished themselves, cradle babies they cannot feed. A father from northern Gaza said his six-week-old son died because there was no formula, and his wife could no longer produce milk: “We buried him in a box because he was too small for a shroud”. Multiply that by 98 and you have the child death toll from Gaza’s famine so far.

International humanitarian law leaves no room for doubt. Article 54 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions forbids starving civilians as a method of warfare. Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court defines it as a war crime. As occupying power, Israel is bound under the Fourth Geneva Convention to ensure food and medical supplies reach Gaza.

Human Rights Watch says Israeli statements and actions “reflect an intent to starve civilians.” UN Special Rapporteurs warn the siege could amount to genocide. In May 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Gallant, explicitly naming starvation as part of the charges though history shows such courts rarely act against Western-backed regimes without immense political pressure. World Health Organization’s Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, calls the situation “man-made mass starvation,” stressing it is not a natural disaster but a deliberate act.

Images of skeletal children and breadlines under sniper fire have pierced public conscience. From Sydney to San Francisco, protesters carry placards reading “Starvation is a War Crime,” quoting UN officials in calls for an immediate end to the siege. Yet in many capitals, concern remains the most common currency. Over 20 countries, including European powers and regional governments have condemned the blockade but limited themselves to words, not action.

By contrast, some states have combined rhetoric with real measures. Iran has openly linked its military confrontation with Israel to the defence of Gaza, framing it as part of a broader Resistance Axis strategy to break the siege. From its support to allied movements in Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, and Syria, Tehran has ensured that the pressure on Israel is not merely diplomatic but strategic.

On 22 July 2025, Iran’s Foreign Ministry denounced “the horrific crimes committed by the Zionist regime,” warning that over a million Gazans face starvation. Pakistan, at the UN Security Council, called the siege “unprecedented inhumanity” and demanded immediate relief corridors. Apart from Iran and a few other committed states, there is still no united and ongoing regional effort whether economic, diplomatic, or military—to bring the blockade to an end.

The famine is not over. It is a crime in progress. Every day without decisive intervention will make the next statistic more grotesque. The Qur’anic tradition holds that the cry of the oppressed is heard by God even if ignored by the world. Gaza’s cry is now a whisper uttered by those too weak to lift their heads. If the world will not act when 212 are dead and nearly half a million stand at the edge of survival, it forfeits its claim to moral leadership.

History will record whether we saw this famine for what it is: a crime against humanity, unfolding in plain sight. It will remember who acted, and who allowed the slowest weapon to do its work.

***Islamabad-based Muhammad Akmal Khan submitted this contribution to the Mehr English website.