“I’m absolutely convinced that what’s going on in Gaza is a genocide—because the thing speaks for itself.”
— Martin Griffiths, former UN Humanitarian Chief
In the shadow of bombs and bullets, a quieter killer is advancing across Gaza: starvation. Not by accident, not by natural disaster, but by design. The deliberate deprivation of food and aid to 2.1 million people has become the defining horror of Israel’s siege on the Strip, turning the war zone into what multiple experts, governments, and rights organizations now openly call a man-made famine—and a textbook case of genocide.
“This is mass starvation,” said World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “It is man-made, and that’s very clear.”
Since July 17, severe acute malnutrition centers across Gaza have been overwhelmed. Supplies are gone. Food is gone. And now, people are dying—especially children. A third of Gaza’s population has not eaten in days, and even if aid suddenly flooded in, many of the malnourished would still die without the specialized medical care Gaza no longer has. Israel has bombed hospitals, targeted ambulances, and systematically dismantled Gaza’s already struggling healthcare system.
As images of emaciated children and skeletal infants begin to flood Western media—too horrific to ignore—establishment outlets and even staunchly pro-Israel newspapers are sounding the alarm. In a shocking departure from its typical tone, The Daily Express—a far-right British tabloid notorious for anti-immigrant rhetoric—splashed its front page with a plea from musician Bob Geldof: “Feed the children of Gaza and their tormented, terrified, broken and panicked mothers.” The previous day, it ran a photo of a skeletal child, Muhammad, with the caption, “For pity’s sake, stop this now.”
Yet, only months earlier, the same paper had promoted long-debunked atrocity propaganda claiming Hamas had beheaded 40 Israeli babies on October 7—one of many falsehoods that helped manufacture public consent for the onslaught now reaching genocidal proportions.
As Palestinian writer Hamza Yusuf put it, “When it mattered most, they manufactured consent to the very horrors they are now condemning. This is cause and effect.”
Israel’s Genocidal Intentions Were Never Hidden
From the earliest days of the war, Israeli leaders openly expressed their intent. On October 9, 2023, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced a “complete siege” of Gaza: “No electricity, no food, no fuel. We are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly.”
Major General Ghassan Alian, head of COGAT—the IDF’s so-called humanitarian coordinator—declared: “You wanted hell, you will get hell.” These statements, laden with genocidal rhetoric, were either buried by Western media or ignored altogether.
Later, Alian was removed from his post—not for going too far, but for not being extreme enough, as far-right elements in Israel’s leadership demanded an even more total blockade.
The West Knew—and Did Nothing
In Spring 2024, internal briefings from two U.S. government departments confirmed to President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Israel was deliberately obstructing humanitarian aid. Under U.S. law, such findings should have triggered an immediate cessation of military support to Israel. Yet, nothing changed.
In the UK, then-Foreign Secretary Lord David Cameron admitted in a letter to Parliament that Israel was actively blocking aid. Still, weapons shipments and political backing continued.
What followed was unprecedented: the largest slaughter of humanitarian workers in modern history. Over 305 UN aid workers have been killed. Dozens of truck drivers have been shot, bombed, or kidnapped. Food convoys were deliberately targeted. The UN’s entire aid delivery system was dismantled and replaced with a U.S.-Israeli-led operation so compromised that its head, a former U.S. Marine, resigned on launch, stating it could not meet basic humanitarian standards.
Starvation as Policy
In March 2025, Israel tightened its siege even further, enforcing a total blockade—nothing in, nothing out. Food aid was dumped at the Kerem Shalom crossing only to be abandoned. Trucks attempting to retrieve it needed IDF permission. When they got it, they were sometimes bombed anyway or forced to drive through areas controlled by Israeli-backed criminal gangs like the Abu Shabab militia, who looted convoys and assaulted drivers.
In May, 97 of 109 UN aid trucks were looted by these gangs. In another instance, 23 of 24 UAE aid trucks were hijacked. Israel then pointed fingers at Hamas, falsely claiming the resistance group was stealing aid. But as the World Food Programme’s director Cindy McCain—widow of the late Senator John McCain—stated, there was no evidence for this. U.S. envoy David Satterfield confirmed that even in classified briefings, Israeli officials made no such claims.
The International Crisis Group concluded that less than 1% of aid was lost to theft, far below average for war zones—and that looting was orchestrated by gangs armed and protected by Israel itself.
The Media Cannot Look Away
Now, even journalists themselves are starving. In a rare joint statement, the world’s largest news agencies—AFP, Reuters, AP, and the BBC—expressed desperation for their reporters trapped inside Gaza.
“For many months, these independent journalists have been the world’s eyes and ears on the ground in Gaza,” the statement read. “They are now facing the same dire circumstances as those they are covering.”
The BBC’s inclusion in this statement raised eyebrows. Once accused of laundering Israeli talking points and burying evidence of war crimes, the broadcaster is now forced to confront the consequences of the catastrophe it helped normalize.
The World Wakes Up
Spain, Ireland, and Slovenia have officially declared that Israel is committing genocide. The Guardian recently published an editorial headlined: “It will take more than words to hold Israel accountable for genocide.”
International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan has already issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, focusing primarily on the weaponization of starvation—a war crime under international law. The Rome Statute, under Article 6(c), defines genocide as “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”
With Gaza’s agriculture razed, livestock slaughtered, water cut, aid obstructed, and hundreds killed for seeking food, the case against Israel grows by the day.
“You Had No Excuses”
On October 24, 2023, in a prescient Guardian column, a commentator warned that those supporting Israel’s assault would later plead ignorance. Today, that prophecy is unfolding.
“You had 21 months of genocidal depravity being live-streamed on a daily basis,” the column read. “Hundreds—thousands—of statements of genocidal and criminal intent by Israeli leaders. You have no excuses.”
Indeed, never in history has a crime been so thoroughly documented—while it was happening. Never have the perpetrators confessed it so openly. And never have the world’s most powerful nations and institutions stood so fully complicit.
The famine in Gaza is not an unintended tragedy. It is the final stage of a deliberate campaign to erase a people.