Israel Rejects Allegations of 'Engineered Mass Starvation' in Gaza

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Israel has hit back at growing international criticism that it was behind chronic food shortages in Gaza, instead accusing Hamas of deliberately creating a humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian territory.

More than 100 aid and human rights groups said earlier Wednesday that “mass starvation” was spreading in the Gaza Strip, and France warned of a growing “risk of famine” caused by “the blockade imposed by Israel”.

The head of the World Health Organization also weighed in, saying that a “large proportion of the population of Gaza is starving”.

“I don’t know what you would call it other than mass starvation — and it’s man-made,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters.

An Israeli government spokesman, David Mencer, said on Wednesday there was “no famine caused by Israel. There is a man-made shortage engineered by Hamas”.

An organisation backed by the United States and Israel, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), began distributing aid in Gaza in May as Israel eased a two-month total blockade, effectively sidelining the longstanding UN-led system.

Aid agencies have said permissions from Israel were still limited, and coordination to safely move trucks to where they are needed was a major challenge in an active war zone.

Mencer accused Hamas of preventing supplies from being distributed and looting aid for themselves or to sell at inflated prices.

“Aid has been flowing into Gaza,” he said, but blamed the United Nations and its associates for failing to pick up truckloads of foodstuffs and other essentials cleared and waiting on the Gaza side of the border.

Access to aid in Gaza

The United States, meanwhile, said its top Middle East envoy was heading to Europe for talks on a possible ceasefire and an aid corridor, raising hopes of a breakthrough after more than two weeks of negotiations.

On the ground, Gaza’s civil defence agency told AFP that Israeli strikes killed 17 people overnight, including a pregnant woman in Gaza City.

The Israeli military said it was operating in Gaza City and elsewhere in the north, and had hit dozens of “terror targets” across the coastal territory.

Getting vital aid into Gaza and to the more than two million people who need it has become a key issue in the conflict, with reports from doctors and aid agencies of increasing cases of malnutrition and starvation.

Woman holds malnourished toddler in tent

Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq, a 1.5-year-old child in Gaza, faces life-threatening malnutrition as the humanitarian situation worsens due to ongoing Israeli attacks and blockade. Source: Getty / Anadolu / Getty Images

The humanitarian organisations said in a joint statement that warehouses with tonnes of supplies were sitting untouched inside and outside Gaza, while people were “trapped in a cycle of hope and heartbreak, waiting for assistance and ceasefires”.

“It is not just physical torment but psychological. Survival is dangled like a mirage,” they added.

The 111 signatories, including Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Save the Children and Oxfam, called for an immediate negotiated ceasefire, the opening of all land crossings and the free flow of aid through UN-led mechanisms.

In Khan Yunis, in Gaza’s south, residents told AFP how they battled to get food aid, with one man calling it “a catastrophic scene and a real famine”.

The UN said on Tuesday that Israeli forces had killed more than 1,000 Palestinians trying to get aid since late May, most near GHF sites.

Mediators continue to pursue truce

Even after Israel began easing its aid blockade in late May, Gaza’s population is still suffering extreme scarcities.

GHF said the UN, which refuses to work with it over neutrality concerns, “has a capacity and operational problem” and called for “more collaboration” to deliver life-saving aid.

COGAT, an Israeli defence ministry body overseeing civil affairs in the Palestinian territories, said the “main obstacle to maintaining a consistent flow of humanitarian aid” was a “collection bottleneck” blamed on international organisations.

Mediators have been shuttling between Israeli and Hamas negotiators in Doha since 6 July in search of an elusive truce, with each side blaming the other for refusing to budge on their key demands.