UN warns Israel could use starvation as weapon against Gazans

The UN said Tuesday that Israel's severe restrictions on aid into war-ravaged Gaza coupled with its military offensive could amount to using starvation as a "weapon of war," which would be a "war crime."

United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk condemned the rampant hunger and looming famine in Gaza.

He lamented the world’s inaction in the face of what he described as a man-made catastrophe despite the UN’s repeated alerts in the past months.

Turk said that "the situation of hunger, starvation and famine is a result of Israel's extensive restrictions on the entry and distribution of humanitarian aid and commercial goods.”

It was also linked to the "displacement of most of the population, as well as the destruction of crucial civilian infrastructure," he said in a statement
"The extent of Israel's continued restrictions on the entry of aid into Gaza, together with the manner in which it continues to conduct hostilities, may amount to the use of starvation as a method of war, which is a war crime," he said.

Turk’s spokesman, Jeremy Laurence, told reporters in Geneva that the final determination of whether "starvation is being used as a weapon of war" would be determined by a court.

The warning comes a day after a UN-backed report said malnutrition and food insecurity have probably exceeded famine levels in Gaza’s north, and hunger-linked death rates were likely to do so soon.

Israel launched the war against Gaza on October 7. Since the beginning of the war, the regime has killed more than 31,600 Gazans, most of them women, children, and adolescents.

In response, resistance movements from Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen have been carrying out military operations against the Tel Aviv regime and its interests in the region.