Weaponising Starvation: Israel’s War on Gaza Enters Genocidal Phase as Famine Kills Dozens – Day 655.

Gaza City, Rafah, Tel Aviv, Geneva – On Day 655 of the Gaza war, famine has descended on the besieged enclave not as an unintended humanitarian crisis, but as a deliberate weapon of war. At least 113 Palestinians, including 84 children, have now died from hunger and malnutrition. But humanitarian organisations, doctors, and witnesses warn that the real number is far higher, and growing daily.

“We are watching children die slow, preventable deaths,” said Dr. Amani Shalabi, a paediatrician treating the displaced in Rafah. “Women and children are on the brink of death. Their bodies are collapsing from hunger and dehydration.”

The entire population of Gaza, more than 2.1 million people, is facing severe or catastrophic levels of food insecurity, according to the UN’s Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC). Nearly half a million are in Phase 5: Catastrophe, the final stage before widespread famine death.

Starvation As Strategy: A Crime By Design.

What is unfolding in Gaza is not a natural disaster; it is the systematic use of famine as a tool of domination, punishment, and erasure.

“Israel has weaponised starvation to annihilate the population and the futures of the Palestinians,” said Michael Fakhri, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. “This is not a result of war, it’s a policy of extermination.”

Israel has actively prevented medical and food aid from being delivered to Palestinians, blocking convoys, denying permits, bombing aid trucks, and targeting humanitarian corridors. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), over 70% of planned humanitarian missions have been denied, delayed, or disrupted by Israeli authorities since March.

“We are being strangled,” said Jens Laerke, OCHA spokesperson. “We cannot deliver food. We cannot deliver medicine. We cannot even guarantee that humanitarian workers won’t be shot.”

Deliberate Obstruction Of Survival Aid:

The Kerem Shalom and Rafah crossings, Gaza’s only major entry points for aid and fuel, remain largely closed under Israeli control. Even after aid trucks are cleared, they are often turned back arbitrarily or attacked.

“Israel controls every checkpoint, every movement,” said Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of UNRWA. “They are actively obstructing aid needed for Palestinians to survive. We are witnessing the man-made collapse of a society.”

Inside Gaza, food convoys are routinely bombed. Eyewitnesses report Israeli drones and snipers targeting civilians attempting to collect flour or baby formula.

“We waited 12 hours in line for flour,” said Maysaa al-Kurd, a mother of five in Jabalia. “Then they opened fire. A boy next to me was shot in the head. We ran. We came back the next day, there was nothing left.”

Doctors say starvation is now the number one killer in areas previously devastated by airstrikes.

“We see babies with hypoglycemia and brain swelling. Mothers with organ failure. We have no IV fluids, no nutrition supplies,” said Dr. Hani Salman, treating patients in Khan Younis. “They are dying while the world debates.”

Children Dying From Hunger, Mothers Withholding Food:

With basic survival aid blocked, many families rely on salt water, foraged weeds, and UN-dropped rations too sparse to sustain a child.

“My daughter stopped crying from hunger,” said Asmaa Abu Daqqa, a widow sheltering near Deir al-Balah. “That’s when I knew she was close to death.”

Humanitarian observers warn that children in Gaza are dying before their fifth birthdays, not from disease, but from deliberate starvation.

“This is a textbook case of using famine as a weapon,” said Jan Egeland, Secretary-General of the Norwegian Refugee Council. “And the siege is structured to starve the young first, the future.”

The GHF Humanitarian Illusion:

In March, the US and Israel launched the Global Humanitarian Federation (GHF), claiming it would provide “secure, sustained relief” to Gaza. But aid groups say it is a smokescreen for militarised distribution and public relations.

“The GHF is more about managing headlines than saving lives,” said Yara Hawari, senior analyst at Al-Shabaka. “It gives cover for a siege that has intentionally collapsed Gaza’s food system.”

GHF convoys often come under fire. Journalists from Al Jazeera and Haaretz have documented sniper attacks on crowds surrounding GHF food trucks, and Israeli forces firing at convoys even with prior coordination.

“It is a trap,” said Basem al-Hinnawi, a father of three in Nuseirat. “They drop food, then shoot anyone who runs for it.”

Medical Collapse: “We Are Operating In The Dark.”

Beyond hunger, Gaza’s health system has been decimated. Hospitals lack electricity, fuel, and water. Medical aid is routinely blocked at the crossings, and Israeli authorities have allegedly denied permission for critical equipment and trauma supplies.

“We are forced to amputate without anaesthesia,” said Dr. Mona Youssef, a trauma surgeon in Rafah. “Newborns are dying from dehydration. Cancer patients are left to rot. This is not war, it is extermination.”

The World Health Organisation has confirmed that more than 80% of Gaza’s hospitals are non-functional, and dozens of clinics have been directly bombed.

“When you combine medical blockade with food blockade, the result is death by design,” said Richard Falk, former UN Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights. “And the goal is clear: to make Gaza unlivable.”

Tel Aviv on Edge: Regional Blowback Grows.

In a further escalation, Yemen’s Ansarallah movement fired a hypersonic missile toward Israel this week, reportedly targeting Ben Gurion Airport. Israeli officials say it was intercepted, but the airspace was temporarily shut, and flight routes were diverted.

“Famine is radicalising the region,” said Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute. “As Gaza starves, armed responses will grow, not shrink.”

Casualty And Collapse: A Nation In Ruins.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, the death toll from Israel’s war has passed:

• 100,000 killed, most of them women and children
• 377,000 injured
• Entire neighbourhoods flattened
• Famine and disease are now overtaking bombardment as the primary cause of death

“We are beyond war,” said Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories. “This is a case study in genocide: bomb the hospitals, starve the children, then deny the survivors food and medicine.”

The Verdict: Genocide By Starvation.

The evidence is overwhelming: Israel is using hunger, disease, and siege not as collateral conditions of war, but as weapons of mass destruction.

“Gaza is dying not from lack of aid, but because the aid is being blocked,” said Raji Sourani, head of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. “This is intentional. This is annihilation.”

And yet, the international response remains muted. The US continues to arm Israel, Britain has refused to suspend arms exports, and the EU has failed to force open aid corridors.

“Every hour that passes without action is complicity,” said Jan Egeland. “This is not a question of whether Gaza is starving. It’s a question of how long the world will let it starve to death.”

Conclusion: Gaza As A Kill Zone, Starvation, Siege, And Systematic Terror.

What is unfolding in Gaza is not a tragic accident of war. It is a deliberate and methodical policy,  a war of extermination. Through siege, bombardment, and bureaucratic strangulation, Israel has weaponised starvation to annihilate not only the population but the very future of Palestine.

Children are dying of hunger in their mothers’ arms. Women are collapsing in the streets. Families survive on water mixed with salt, if they are lucky. In the words of one father, “We feed the children, the adults fast for days. My wife faints. My sister collapses. This isn’t war. This is a slow death sentence.”

More than 113 Palestinians, mostly children, have already died of malnutrition and dehydration, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Thousands more are in critical condition. “This is the tip of the iceberg,” reported Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud from Gaza City. “We are seeing people brought into hospitals who are skeletal, barely alive.”

Doctors, UN officials, and aid workers have been unambiguous. “Famine is unfolding silently,” said UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini. “Parents are too hungry to care for their children.” The World Health Organisation warned that over two million people are now facing starvation. And yet, 6,000 aid trucks remain stranded, blocked from entry. Medical and food aid is being deliberately withheld, not by accident, but by policy.

As OCHA’s Jens Laerke confirmed, Israel refuses to grant UN access to aid crossings and continues to impose military restrictions that make safe aid delivery virtually impossible. Even when convoys are approved, they are often ambushed, shot at, or turned away.

This is more than collective punishment. This is state-sanctioned terrorism.

Israel is not just starving Gaza. It is constructing modern-day concentration camps. By trapping Palestinians in closed zones, restricting all movement, cutting off resources, and then systematically targeting these zones with bombs, bullets, and bureaucratic obstruction, it is treating entire communities as cannon fodder, not combatants, but disposable lives.

The Palestinian people have been corralled, ghettoised, and subjected to conditions of death, disease, and despair. Entire cities have been reduced to rubble. Those who flee face sniper fire. Those who remain starve.

This is terrorism in its purest form, the use of calculated violence, fear, and starvation to force a political outcome: the erasure of Palestine.

And all of it is taking place under the eyes of the world. The United States continues to supply bombs. The US, UK, Germany, and others continue to issue arms licenses. The international system, by its inaction, has become an accessory.

This is not just a humanitarian catastrophe. It is a man-made genocide. A slow, televised extermination, made possible by silence, impunity, and geopolitics.

History will remember Gaza not only for its martyrs, but for the shame of those who turned away and remained complicit in their duties.