By Guillermo Alvarado

Millions of people born in the world in the last 50 years have no record in their memory of the terrible images of the "children of Biafra", who with their bodies deformed by malnutrition and eyes practically without eyelids showed the horror of hunger taken to the cruelest extreme.

Biafra was an ephemeral African republic, split off from Nigeria between 1967 and 1970 which, after declaring its independence, was subjected to a brutal blockade that caused the death by famine of nearly one million people, most of them children, until its total surrender.

It was a clear example of how lack of food becomes a very effective weapon, especially when one of the contenders lacks the slightest sense of respect for human life.

Someone will say that war is justly the greatest display of disregard for life, but even in this regrettable way of resolving differences between groups, peoples or nations there are rules and one of them is to avoid unnecessary deaths, particularly of civilians and above all of children.

Now we see that, as Nigeria did with Biafra, the Zionist State of Israel is using starvation as a way to exterminate the Palestinian people.

Aware that Benjamin Netanyahu cannot forever prevent the entry of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, because with this behavior he is taking away the political umbrella of his main partner, the United States, he has now changed tactics and started to attack food convoys.

Contrary to what it would have the world believe, the attack against the World Central Kitchen group, which caused the death of seven of its members, was not an accident of war, a collateral casualty or mere chance, but a coldly calculated operation.

This was denounced by the founder of the humanitarian organization, chef José Andrés, who said that the vehicles were clearly identified, were attacked and destroyed one by one and, in addition, the Israeli troops knew their movements very well.

The immediate consequence was that this and other groups suspended their activities due to lack of security. Earlier this week, several ships headed for Gaza returned to Cyprus with more than 200 tons of food, which means more hungry children.

My generation does not forget the images of the little ones in Biafra. There was no Internet or social networks then, but they were on the front pages of the main international newspapers and magazines, where, by the way, those of the Palestinian children are absent today, another sign that the world has changed a lot, but has not improved at all.