Making food a political issue throttles Gaza lives

In a world where 757 million people face chronic hunger, and 45 million children suffer from wasting due to acute malnutrition, Gaza stands out as unique. War, drought, earthquakes, and other natural disasters are responsible for starvation in other places. Gaza is the only territory where a hostile foreign power illegally occupying Gaza is deliberately depriving the population of food, water, fuel, and medical supplies. Weaponising food is prohibited under international law.

Last week the International Court of Justice (ICJ) held five days of hearings on how Israel is violating its international legal obligations as the illegal occupier of Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank. Envoys addressing the hearings focused on Israel’s 60-day total blockade, the longest closure Gaza has faced so far.

It is not known when and how aid deliveries will resume. Israel is, reportedly, trying to design a means of delivering food packages directly to Gazan’s 2.3 million people. This would ensure Israeli control and exclude the involvement of international aid organisations. They are sharply critical of the two-month blockade and the resumption on March 18th of bombing and ground attacks in Gaza which have killed more than 2,300 and injured 6,000 Palestinians, the majority women and children.

The ICJ hearings, mandated by the UN General Assembly, included submissions from 49 nations and organisations. Among the most telling interventions came from the director of legal affairs at Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry Mohamed Saud Alnasser. He stated, “Less than a year ago, the court heard that Israel’s policies and practices in the occupied territory, including its settlement practices, its continued occupation and its annexation of parts of that territory are flagrant violations of international law that must be brought to an end as a matter of urgency.”

He added, “Sadly, but predictably, Israel chose to ignore the court’s ruling, showing it considered itself above the law”.

He condemned Israel’s “hideous conduct” in Gaza where it has imposed “siege conditions” since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th, 2023.

During the first two days of the hearings, speakers were highly critical of Israel’s actions. On the third day, however, a US State Department legal adviser, Joshua Simmons, expressed disagreement by saying that Israel need not work with UNRWA, the UN agency which is the main provider and conduit for aid deliveries in Gaza. He said there is “no legal requirement that an occupying power permit a third state or international organisation to conduct activity that would compromise its security interests.”

Israel has banned cooperation with UNRWA as Israel claims 19 of UNRWA’s 13,000 staff participated in Hamas’ attack.

International humanitarian agencies have castigated Israel and launched appeals for its friends to exert pressure to allow live saving aid to flow immediately. Britain and France have called upon Israel to lift the siege and blockade, and ceasefire and US President Donald Trump said on April 25th he had told Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to allow food and medicine into Gaza. Israel has replied that the blockade would continue until all 59 of the Israeli captives of Hamas are released. Israel accuses Hamas of diverting aid, which both Hamas and aid agencies deny.

Before the ongoing war, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation said agriculture accounted for “approximately 10 percent of Gaza’s economy, with more than 560,000 people relying entirely or partially on cropping, herding, or fishing for their livelihoods.” The UN reports the war has devastated Gaza’s farmland and grazing areas, and destroyed the fishing fleet, making Gazans totally dependent on supplies from outside the Strip and vulnerable to malnutrition.

“Not a drop of water, not a grain of wheat” has entered Gaza since March 2nd, UNRWA spokeswoman Juliette Touma told the BBC. In an e-mail to Gulf Today she said that supplies entering during the ceasefire “are running out quickly. It’s been two months of a tight siege; Gaza is a place that is highly dependent on imports from outside. Every day, Gaza needs 500-600 trucks of supplies (commercial and humanitarian).” She called for an end to the blockade and aid to flow to “match the unprecedented need.”

International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Deputy Director of Operation Pascal Hundt said in a statement, “Civilians in Gaza are facing an overwhelmingly daily struggle to survive the dangers of hostilities, cope with relentless displacement, and endure the consequences of being deprived of urgent humanitarian assistance.” He added, “This situation must not — and cannot — be allowed to escalate further.”

World Health Organisation (WHO) head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called the Gaza situation “catastrophically bad. We are breaking the bodies and minds of the children of Gaza.” His deputy Michael Ryan told reporters, “We are starving the children of Gaza. We are complicit.” He continued, “As a physician I am angry. It is an abomination...the current level of malnutrition is causing a collapse in immunity.” Ryan warned that cases of pneumonia and meningitis in women and children could increase.

On April 25th, the World Food Programme (WFP) delivered the last of its stocks of flour to bakeries and rice, lentils, tomato paste and tinned vegetables to kitchens which have prepared hot meals. WFP director Cindy McCain told US public radio, “There’s nothing left. There’s no place to go for food anymore.”

She added. “Food is not political. And to make food political is something that is unconscionable, number one, but number two, it just shouldn’t happen.”

In its annual report released last month Amnesty International wrote, “Israel’s relentless military offensive on the occupied Gaza Strip intensified the long-standing humanitarian crisis caused by Israel’s 18-year unlawful blockade of Gaza.” After Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007, Israel besieged, blockaded, and waged war on Gaza in 2008-2009, 2012. 2014, 2021 and 2024-2025. These wars have not only killed Gazans and devastated the Strip but also deprived them of stability and a decent standard of life and diminished their physical and psychological resistance to trauma and deprivation.

On February 8th this year, the British medical journal The Lancet published a study by Michel Guillot, Mohammed Draidi, José H C Monteiro Da Silva, and Ismail Lubbad who reported that life expectancy fell steeply during the first year of the war that began in October 2023. They found life expectancy fell by more than 30 years during the first 12 months of the war, nearly “halving pre-war levels” of the mid-seventies for both men and women.