The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories (B'Tselem), in a report on the issue, detailed that residents of this territory spend days and nights without eating almost anything.
“The desperate search for food does not stop for a moment, although in most cases it is unsuccessful and the population is starving, including babies, children, pregnant or breastfeeding women and the elderly,” he stressed.
The people of Gaza are now completely dependent on supplies from abroad because they can produce almost no food themselves, he said.
B'Tselem noted that most cultivated fields were destroyed, while factories and warehouses were damaged by the bombing or closed due to lack of supplies, fuel and electricity.
Instead of allowing enough food into the Gaza Strip, Israel only allows a fraction, with restrictions on the type of goods, how they are imported and distributed, he criticized.
“The result is unimaginable: images of children begging for food, people waiting in long lines for meager handouts, and hungry residents attacking aid trucks,” he lamented.
Given this situation, he warned that this strategy was a war crime and called on the world to take urgent action.
The Israeli government can, if it wants, change this reality, the organization assured.
Changing this policy is not only a moral obligation, importing food into the Gaza Strip is not an act of kindness, but an obligation under international humanitarian law: starvation as a method of war is prohibited, he reminded.
lam/rob