“Look at her stomach! There is no flesh, just bones from the lack of food — an entire month without bread,” said Jihan al-Quraan as she held her young daughter close.
On 9 October 2023, Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza, cutting off food, water, medicine, fuel, and electricity, worsening the humanitarian crisis; by January 2024, over half of the humanitarian aid to northern Gaza was blocked. UNRWA reported in February 2024 that Israel was preventing food from reaching over 1.1 million Palestinians, deepening famine conditions.
This forced starvation is a deliberate policy by Israel to annihilate an entire population. Adam Tooze writes that, “In Nigeria — mainly in the North — it is one sixth of the population. In Myanmar and the DRC it is roughly a quarter of the population. In Yemen, Sudan, South Sudan and Haiti — the places most commonly cited in arguments about the application of “special standards” to Israel — the share of the population at risk is between 49 and 57 percent. In Gaza, the share is 100 percent. The risk of famine is total.”
Since 2 March 2025, Israel has enforced a complete shutdown — the longest total blockade in Gaza’s history — further strangling the besieged population. In the past month alone, Israeli attacks killed at least 71 Palestinians seeking aid, even as hospitals recorded 82 famine-related deaths. *Al Jazeera* reported on Wednesday that Israeli forces killed 51 and wounded over 648 people near the Zikim crossing, where aid trucks enter northern Gaza.
However, this forced starvation of Gaza is not new.
Israel has blocked access to Gaza since 2007, easing the blockade only after the international outcry following the Gaza flotilla raid in 2010, which resulted in the death of nine activists aboard the Turkish-led aid ship, Mavi Marmara. In 2012, the *Guardian* published documents from Israel’s defence ministry which stated that Israel calculated Gaza's daily calorie needs (2,279 per person) to allow aid during its 2007-2010 blockade and banned "luxuries" like coriander and instant coffee.
Starvation is a war crime, and the support of Western powers emboldens Israel to continue its genocide with impunity.
Since 1948, Israel has received the highest US military aid of any country in the world; in 2024, the Biden administration accelerated weapon exports to Israel. The U.S. has also repeatedly blocked UN resolutions calling for a humanitarian ceasefire; its unwavering support of Israel has resulted in the deaths of approximately 70,000 Palestinians in Gaza.
Europe is the second-largest weapons exporter to Israel, with German exports surging tenfold in 2023, rising from €32.3 million ($35m) to €326.5 million ($354m), with most export licenses approved after October 7. Germany has also branded the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement as anti-Semitic.
By shielding Israel diplomatically, arming it materially, and criminalizing Palestinian solidarity at home, Western states have helped create the conditions under which mass starvation has become a tool of war.
After 7 October 2023, Israeli airstrikes have destroyed bakeries across Gaza, amid severe shortages of flour, while several water plants and farms have been bombed to the ground, leaving Gazans with no means of feeding themselves. Abdulwhhab Abu Alamrain, an MSF volunteer at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, said, "A kid came to our house like two days ago begging for something to eat, a piece of bread. We don’t have any. We gave him from our lunch, [a] cup of chickpeas… Life feels dystopian recently."
Despite the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) investigating Israel for genocide, the bombing, forced starvation, and arms trade continue — backed by Western powers and their allies. On 8 June 2025, when the Gaza Freedom Flotilla was intercepted by the Israeli navy and its passengers detained, political leaders responded not with outrage but with mockery. U.S. President Donald Trump called Greta Thunberg — one of the activists aboard — "strange" and "angry,” suggesting she take “an anger management class.” Just days later, on 11 June, Argentine President Javier Milei dismissed Thunberg as a “mercenary of international leftist activism.”
This support for Israel unmasks the hypocrisy and complicity of the Western powers that otherwise claim to uphold international law. If the world accepts Israel’s impunity — blocking aid while bombing breadlines, targeting journalists and doctors, and displacing Gaza’s population — it enables the erasure of Palestinian life.
A ceasefire alone is not enough: arms embargoes, sanctions, and prosecutions for war criminals are essential to break this cycle of violence.
