- Colombia has requested permission from the International Court of Justice to intervene in South Africa’s case against Israel for genocide in Gaza, aiming to protect Palestinian safety and existence.
- The ICJ has ordered Israel to ensure timely food supplies to Gaza and previously instructed Israel to refrain from actions under the genocide convention and to prevent genocidal acts against Palestinians, which Israel denies, attributing its actions to targeting Hamas rather than civilians.
The evidence for Israel using hunger as a weapon of genocide is vast. There are thousands of trucks held up at the Gaza border. There have now been several flour massacres where Israel fires on citizens trying to get food from trucks.
On Dec. 21, the WHO said:
Despite this, The Washington Post reported that “In February, just 98 trucks per day crossed into Gaza on average, according to the United Nations, compared with an average of 170 per day in January.”
Senator Van Hollen visited the Rafah border crossing in January and observed:
On 9 October 2023, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant in an Israeli Army ‘situation update’ advised that Israel was “imposing a complete siege on Gaza. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly."
Don’t believe their words? Look at their actions. Don’t believe their actions, look at the results. Don’t believe the results? Well, I can’t make you believe your lying eyes.
I’m not living in imaginary land, I believe the facts you’ve described to be substantially true but with context, on balance, I don’t think they are evidence of what you’re saying. Water purification systems that can be used to sustain Hamas down in the tunnels are clearly dual use. Dual use isn’t a total ban, importer just needs specific permission, and they consider known intelligence, who is sending, who is receiving, what do they say it’s for, is that true, etc. United Arab Emirates is building three new water plants in Gaza this year and one already opened. Obviously, Israel isn’t blocking all water purification systems, right?
The Defense Minister made that statement on October 9, two days after the terrorist attack, and days before Israel took part in a multilateral group of states, including the US, Egypt, and Qatar, to open aid corridors and coordinate food and medical shipments. I note that at no time since then have all aid corridors been shut down. A couple of aid trucks have been blown up, for whatever reason, but many many more were not. At least a couple of people were killed when food aid packages literally fell out of the sky and landed on them. As I said, new desalination plants are opening. So, obviously, what the Defense Minister said, you must agree, is not what ended up happening, right?
31 people have died from starvation in the course of five months, and 31 is the high estimate. Of those I know at least a few were said to have been trapped under collapsed buildings and tunnels for days or weeks, unable to access available food. Horrible either way to be sure, but part of a general strategy? I don’t see that.
Miles of trucks may have been backed up on that day at that crossing but not every day at every crossing, right? 170 trucks per day down to 98. Okay, why? Without explaining why, it’s not really evidence of anything other than the fact that fewer trucks entered. Certainly you would agree that with a war going on, trucks going in must be inspected? Otherwise, what’s to stop Iran from snuggling in anything it wants, even nuclear material for dirty bombs? There are 400 trucks per day, lately, and that figure on average continues to rise, as it has been, since the early days of the war. That evidence doesn’t say “weaponizing food,” to me.