‘Engineered famine’: Starving Gaza children too weak to cry

UNITED NATIONS: Calling the starvation of Palestinians an “engineered famine”, the CEO of Save the Children — an NGO — told the UN Security Council on Wednesday said that the children in Gaza “do not have the strength to speak or even cry out in agony”.

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“The Gaza famine is here. An engineered famine. A predicted famine. A manmade famine. As we speak children in Gaza are systematically being starved to death,” said Inger Ashing.

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“This is a deliberate policy. This is starvation as a method of war in its starkest terms.”

Unlike the Western media, Ashing named Israel and shared the details of the tactics to block the food supply.

“Israeli authorities have rejected requests from dozens of NGOs to bring in lifesaving goods to Gaza, and have tied continued operations to new registration rules.”

Ashing said the registration rules introduced by Israel “require impartial humanitarian actors to take actions that are unlawful, unsafe, and incompatible with humanitarian principles”.

WAR CRIMES

Moreover, Ashing also criticised the “so-called creative solutions” like air drops and mentioned how the Palestinians are being killed while seeking food at distribution points.

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“Families we support increasingly refer to these distribution points as ‘the jaws of death’,” she added.

Using the occasion, she also talked about war crimes committed by Israel.

“Independent entities mandated to conclude and determine whether atrocity crimes and war crimes are taking place have done so. In addition, grave violations against children are being committed at an unprecedented rate across the occupied Palestinian territory according to the [UN] Secretary-General’s annual reports”.

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“The overwhelming majority were perpetrated against Palestinian children, though there are violations against Israeli children also, including children taken hostage.