More than 2.4 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are facing a humanitarian catastrophe of unprecedented scale, as Israel continues its systematic policy of genocide against defenceless civilians—a campaign made possible by global silence that emboldens further crimes without consequence.
In a statement issued on Sunday, the Government Media Office in Gaza confirmed that Israeli forces are relentlessly targeting people, homes, infrastructure, and natural resources, intensifying bombardments, destroying entire neighbourhoods, and blocking humanitarian aid, thereby escalating the crisis to catastrophic levels.
The statement condemned Israel’s deliberate starvation policy, noting that the occupation is preventing the entry of food and medical supplies, leading to skyrocketing rates of hunger and malnutrition, particularly among the more than one million children in Gaza, as well as the elderly and vulnerable.
Israel has also destroyed water wells and blocked access to clean water sources, creating a severe water crisis that now threatens the lives of civilians. The lack of potable water has led to widespread disease outbreaks, amid contamination and the collapse of the healthcare system.
The statement further highlighted Israel’s ongoing ban on the entry of cooking gas and fuel, which has halted bakery operations, crippled essential services, and caused the complete paralysis of public transportation.
Movement within Gaza is nearly impossible, compounding the suffering of the sick and wounded, many of whom are unable to reach hospitals or medical centres, which themselves are on the verge of collapse due to severe shortages of medicine, equipment, and fuel.
The use of starvation and thirst as weapons of war is classified as a war crime under Article 54 of Additional Protocol I to the 1977 Geneva Conventions, which prohibits starvation as a method of warfare and requires occupying forces to facilitate humanitarian relief.
Similarly, Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits collective punishment—a policy that Israel systematically enforces through its siege, indiscriminate killing, and the destruction of essential infrastructure. These practices fall within the legal definition of genocide, understood as the intentional destruction, in whole or in part, of a national, ethnic, or religious group.
Israel, with the full backing of the U.S. administration, bears complete responsibility for the ongoing crimes against the civilian population in Gaza. Through a deliberate campaign of extermination and a crippling blockade, it has created conditions that deny Palestinians their basic rights—to life, food, water, and health.
The continued silence of the international and Arab communities may amount to complicity, encouraging Israel to persist in its violations without fear of accountability, thereby undermining the foundations of international law and human decency.
This crisis demands immediate global action to halt the massacres, open the crossings, and deliver urgent humanitarian aid to save the lives of innocent civilians enduring slow death under siege and unrelenting assault.
