TEHRAN- Since Israel launched war on the Gaza Strip nearly five months ago, it has perpetrated massacre after massacre and used starvation of civilians as a method of warfare in the besieged Palestinian territory.

International law has stipulated that intentionally starving civilians by “depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including willfully impeding relief supplies” is a war crime.

Israel has been systematically denying Palestinians of these indispensable objects which include food, water and shelter. 

“Intentionally depriving people of food is clearly a war crime. Israel has announced its intention to destroy the Palestinian people, in whole or in part, simply for being Palestinian.

In my view as a UN human rights expert, this is now a situation of genocide. This means the state of Israel in its entirety is culpable and should be held accountable – not just individuals or this government or that person,” Michael Fakhri, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, told the Guardian late last month. 

Hunger and severe malnutrition are widespread in the Gaza Strip where 2.3 million people are facing severe shortages. 

UN humanitarian coordinator Ramesh Ramasingham told the Security Council late February that 576,000 people in Gaza, which is at least one quarter of the territory’s population, are one step away from famine. 

The World Food Program has also warned that a famine is imminent in northern Gaza.

Dire situation of children

Hunger is mainly threatening the lives of kids in Gaza.  

UNICEF has warned that the alarming lack of food, surging malnutrition and disease could lead to an “explosion” in child deaths in Gaza. Reports suggest that parents are using animal fodder to satisfy their children's hunger.  

But Israel has no scruples to starve Palestinians including children. 

A pediatrician at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza said that the most doctors at the hospital can do for malnourished and dehydrated children is to give them saline

solution or sugar solution, according to Al Jazeera. 

“All of this is happening due to the lack of food,” Dr Imad Dardonah added. 

CNN: Medicines denied entry 

On Saturday, a CNN investigation revealed Israel is obstructing the entrance of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, as near-famine grips parts of the besieged territory.  It found that Israel has imposed “arbitrary and contradictory criteria” regarding access to vital aid. 

These include anesthetics and anesthesia machines, oxygen cylinders, ventilators and water filtration systems. Other products such as dates and medicines have also been denied entry.

The probe is based on interviews with more than two dozen humanitarian and government officials. 

In the face of such brutal measures, Israel has also killed hungry people who seek food in the Gaza Strip.

On Thursday, Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinian people who were waiting for deliveries of food from a cargo of aid trucks in a Gaza City neighborhood. 

But Israeli far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir praised the regime’s troops for committing the massacre calling them “heroic fighters”. 

Ben-Gvir and some other high-ranking Israeli officials have also defended a total siege on basic necessities like food, water and fuel into Gaza that was imposed by the regime of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in early October. 

Thursday’s massacre in the Gaza City neighborhood was condemned as a “heinous massacre” by many officials and aid groups across the globe. 

Washington’s Western allies also condemned the massacre. They, however, did not take any action to hold the regime accountable for the atrocious crime. 

The global condemnation of the massacre led to growing pressure on the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden which has remained supportive of Israel’s brutal onslaught on Gaza. 

To ease pressure on the White House, Biden ordered the U.S. military to airdrop food aid into Gaza. 

U.S. military cargo planes dropped first aid packages into Gaza on Saturday.  The U.S. carried out the aid operation with Jordan’s air force. 

But the U.S. move triggered fierce criticism with several aid agencies rejecting it as ineffective. 

"Airdrops are expensive, haphazard and usually lead to the wrong people getting the aid," Jan Egeland, head of aid organization at the Norwegian Refugee Council, said. 

Oxfam also blasted the White House’s decision.

“While Palestinians in Gaza have been pushed to the absolute brink, dropping a paltry, symbolic amount of aid into Gaza with no plan for its safe distribution would not help and be deeply degrading to Palestinians,” Scott Paul, who leads Oxfam’s U.S. government advocacy work, said in a statement on X.

He added, "Oxfam does not support U.S. airdrops to Gaza, which would mostly serve to relieve the guilty consciences of senior U.S. officials whose policies are contributing to the ongoing atrocities and risk of famine in Gaza.”

A former USAID mission director in the West Bank and Gaza also shed light on Bidne’s motives.   

“The airdrops are symbolic and designed in ways to appease the domestic base,” Dave Harden told Al Jazeera. 

He added, “Really what needs to happen is more crossings [opening] and more trucks going in every day. The U.S. has the ability to compel Israel to open up more aid and by not doing that we’re putting our assets and our people at risks and potentially creating more chaos in Gaza.”

The Biden administration can use its powerful leverage at the UN Security Council to force Israel to allow humanitarian aid enter Gaza. Washington can also push Israel to end the Gaza war through attaching conditions to its unwavering political and military support for the regime. 

Such calls have been made by members of the U.S. Congress. 

“Hundreds of thousands of children are facing starvation. Stop this war right now – no more money for Netanyahu’s government,” Senator Bernie Sanders said in a post on X on Saturday.

The United States is fully aware that the airdrops will fail to meet the needs of hungry people in Gaza. This is because the measure is just a drop in the ocean. 

The U.S. airdrop policy is also a publicity stunt as it tries to paper over the failure of its policy toward Israel. 

Biden has been Netanyahu’s partner in crime and he cannot absolve himself of complicity for Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza which has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians since October 7. 

The only way to help the Palestinian people in Gaza is to pressure Israel to open land and sea corridors so that humanitarian assistance can be distributed in the territory.