Rights group Amnesty International has accused Israel of deliberately starving Palestinians in Gaza, warning that its policies are creating famine conditions in the besieged territory.
The charge comes as the UN and aid agencies continue to raise alarms about a worsening humanitarian crisis.
“Israel, while heavily restricting aid allowed into the Gaza Strip, has repeatedly rejected claims of deliberate starvation in the 22-month-old war.”
In a report citing testimonies of displaced Palestinians and medical staff who treated malnourished children, Amnesty said that “Israel is carrying out a deliberate campaign of starvation in the occupied Gaza Strip.”
The group accused Israel of “systematically destroying the health, well-being and social fabric of Palestinian life”.
“It is the intended outcome of plans and policies that Israel has designed and implemented, over the past 22 months, to deliberately inflict on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction — which is part and parcel of Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza,” Amnesty said.
The report is based on interviews conducted in recent weeks with 19 displaced Gazans sheltering in three makeshift camps as well two medical staff in two hospitals in Gaza City.
Media reported that the Israeli military and foreign ministry did not provide an immediate response to Amnesty’s findings when contacted.
Last week, Israel’s defence ministry body COGAT, which manages civil affairs in the Palestinian territories, dismissed reports of widespread malnutrition in Gaza. It also challenged the statistics released by the health ministry in the Hamas-controlled enclave.
Back in April, Amnesty International accused Israel of carrying out a “live-streamed genocide” by forcibly displacing Palestinians in Gaza and worsening the humanitarian crisis. Israel rejected those accusations, calling them false and deliberately misleading.
