By Ali Karbalaei 

Starving Gaza: Barbarism Par Excellence

December 18, 2023 - 22:21
The Israeli regime has allowed a tiny portion of food to enter the enclave 

TEHRAN- The Israeli regime, as ordered by its prime minister and his extremist ministers, has imposed extreme conditions on the entry of food to the Gaza Strip's 2.3 million civilian population. 

Many Palestinians are starving, and UN bodies have accused the regime of using "starvation" as a weapon of war against the people of Gaza. 

Using starvation as a "weapon of war" in Gaza by intentionally cutting people's access to water and food is a war crime, Human Rights Watch (HRW), OXFAM, and other international rights groups have pointed out. 
The Israeli motive for this can be explained in three contexts. 

Firstly, who is the Israeli military fighting? Hamas or the civilian population of Gaza? 

If it is fighting the armed wing of Hamas, which the regime blames for the October 7 attack on southern Israel, then it has failed in this regard. 

Israel is resorting to starvation as a weapon of war to drive Palestinians out of Gaza, which is a war crime under international law. 

The Palestinian resistance remains steadfast and is killing more Israeli troops than the regime had anticipated. 

There has never been such a high loss of Israeli army lives in all the wars the regime has waged on Gaza. 

So, how can it defeat Hamas if it cannot do so militarily? 

By imposing extreme restrictions on the entry of food to the enclave, it is trying to make the Palestinian civilian population as desperate as possible to the extent that they turn against the ruling Hamas party in Gaza. 

This was evident when Palestinians raided a truck carrying food supplies entering via the Rafah border crossing. 

It is clear the Palestinians are desperate for food. But have they turned against Hamas? 

According to a recent poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy Survey and Research, during the Israeli war on Gaza, Palestinian support for Hamas and its leaders has increased. 

So the Israeli dream of turning hungry Palestinians against Hamas and overthrowing the political group and its armed wing is wishful thinking.  Instead, the move has largely drawn international condemnation. 

According to the latest UN General Assembly vote, the Israeli regime found itself isolated. 

Also, since the regime cannot defeat the Palestinian resistance fighters in the battlefield or cause a crack in the determination of the Palestinian civilians in their resentment against occupiers, Tel Aviv has turned to the strategy of starving them to death. 

A lack of nutrition will bring about epidemics, which UN agencies have also warned about. 

In essence, this is bordering on ethnic cleansing. 

The Israeli regime wants as many Palestinians to die of hunger and disease as possible so that it can re-occupy, if not all, at least many areas of the totally blockaded Gaza Strip. 

These are the goals of the ultra-Orthodox ministers of Netanyahu's cabinet. 

But again, the vast majority of the international community is calling for an immediate ceasefire, and many in the region and beyond are working hard to stop this war crime. 

Netanyahu is trying to drag this war out for as long as possible to avoid an inevitable prison sentence awaiting him. 

But pressure is mounting against Netanyahu's sinister moves by angry Israelis and the international community at large. 

They are all calling for an immediate ceasefire. 

It is no coincidence that the regime has dispatched a top Mossad agent to Qatar to explore another ceasefire. 

Conflicting reports have emerged over the position of Hamas towards another ceasefire. 

A senior Hamas official recently ruled out any further talks on a ceasefire. 

However, sources have told news agencies that Hamas is insisting on setting the list of hostages to be released unilaterally and demanding Israeli forces withdraw behind pre-determined lines. 

Citing Egyptian security sources, Reuters said the Israeli regime and Hamas are both open to a renewed ceasefire and hostage release. 

Disagreement remains over how it would be implemented, the sources said.

The Israeli regime has refused to withdraw but agreed that Hamas set the list so long as the group provided a timeline and allowed the regime to see the list in order to decide the time and duration of the ceasefire. 

The other reason that the regime is resorting to starvation as a weapon of war is completely based on ethnic cleansing, which is a war crime under international law. 

The Israeli regime is starving Palestinian families in the hope that it will reach a point in which they will be forced to move out of Gaza and into Egypt. 

In March, Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich proposed a similar plan according to which the residents of the occupied Gaza Strip will be forced out of their lands and forcibly moved to Jordan. 

He made the remarks whilst standing behind a map that read "Greater Israel". 

The problem for the regime with this scenario is that the Egyptians have categorically stated they will never entertain the idea that Gazans will be ethnically cleared from their homeland and transferred to the Sinai Peninsula or anywhere else in Egypt. 

Amman has also stood firm in rejecting the idea of pushing the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank to Jordan. 

What is more important is that no matter how hungry Palestinians become, they have repeatedly stated that they will choose to die of hunger in the Gaza Strip rather than leave their homeland. 

Gaza is their land, and the residents of the Gaza Strip are widely known as being one of the most resilient people in the world. 

They became refugees after the creation of the Israeli entity and they will not become refugees again in another ethnic cleansing campaign through starvation. 

The whole starvation policy has not and will not work in the Gaza Strip. It will not turn the Palestinians against Hamas as polls have shown. The regime will not succeed to starve them to death as time is against Netanyahu. The reasons are that he is seeking another ceasefire with Hamas and the region will not accept another mass relocation of the Palestinians from their land. 

Analysts say resistance forces and the Palestinian public are struggling against the cruelest, most savage and barbaric regime on the planet in the 21st century, and such a nation will never give in. 

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