United Nations, September 7 (RHC)-- A UN expert has said Israel is carrying out a “starvation campaign” against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, adding that the regime is using humanitarian aid as a weapon of war to kill people in the besieged strip.
In a report to the UN General Assembly this week, Michael Fakhri, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, said that the Israeli military has severely restricted the flow of food, medicines and other humanitarian supplies to Gaza since it launched its aggression against the besieged territory in early October last year.
“By December, Palestinians in Gaza made up 80 percent of the people in the world experiencing famine or catastrophic hunger,” Fakhri said. “Never in post-war history had a population been made to go hungry so quickly and so completely as was the case for the 2.3 million Palestinians living in Gaza,” he added.
The UN special rapporteur went on to say that since the beginning of the war, he has received direct reports of the destruction of Gaza’s food system, which also has been documented by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and others.
He also stressed that “Israel then used humanitarian aid as a political and military weapon to harm and kill the Palestinian people in Gaza.”
Fakhri further noted that Israel has been deploying “the full range of techniques of hunger and starvation against the Palestinians, perfecting the degree of control, suffering and death that it can cause through food systems” since 76 years ago when the illegal occupying regime was created.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denied the allegations, saying accusations of Israel limiting humanitarian aid are “outrageously false.”
Israel has repeatedly closed the tightly controlled crossings in a deliberate attempt to block the flow of food, medicines and basic supplies into Gaza, using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.
The Kerem Shalom crossing is the main entry point for incoming aid to southern Gaza. Palestinians in Gaza say they struggle to afford enough food for their families.
