11:38 a.m. ET, December 18, 2023
Human Rights Watch accuses Israel of using starvation as a “weapon of war” in Gaza. Israel calls it a lie
From CNN’s Kareem Khadder and Radina Gigova
A Palestinian child reacts while people gather to get their share of charity food offered by volunteers amid food shortages in Rafah, Gaza, on December 2.
Ibrahim Abu Mustafa/Reuters
Human Rights Watch accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza, calling it a “war crime” in a report released Monday — a charge that an Israeli government spokesperson dismissed as “a lie.”
Human Rights Watch’s Israel and Palestine director, Omar Shakir, told CNN that Israeli authorities “have for months been deliberately depriving Gaza’s population of food and water, willfully impeding humanitarian assistance, intentionally destroying objects indispensable to survival, including bakeries, grain mills and water and sanitation facilities, and apparently razing agricultural areas.”
The report is based on interviews with 11 displaced Palestinians in Gaza, public statements by members of the Israeli government and statements by organizations including the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, World Food Programme, Oxfam and the Norwegian Refugee Council.
“Statements from high-level Israeli officials show that this is a deliberate policy to starve civilians as a weapon of war,” Shakir said.
The Human Rights Watch report notes that “high-ranking Israeli officials, including Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, and Energy Minister Israel Katz have made public statements expressing their aim to deprive civilians in Gaza of food, water and fuel” and that this “policy” is “being carried out by Israeli forces.”
Other Israeli officials have publicly stated that humanitarian aid to Gaza “would be conditioned either on the release of hostages unlawfully held by Hamas or Hamas’ destruction,” Human Rights Watch added.
“That is an abhorrent war crime, compounding its collective punishment of Palestinian civilians and blocking of humanitarian aid, which are also war crimes,” Shakir told CNN. “World leaders should speak out and take urgent action to prevent further atrocities—the lives of hundreds of thousands hang in the balance.”
What Israel is saying: Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy forcefully dismissed the watchdog’s claims on Monday, saying Hamas was to blame for any shortages in Gaza.
“This is a lie,” he said in response to a social media post from Shakir on X. “Israel has excess capacity to inspect more than twice as many aid trucks as are entering Gaza. We’re still pumping water into Gaza through two pipelines and have placed no restrictions on entry of food and water,” Levy said. “Direct your anger to Hamas, which hijacks aid.”
Human Rights Watch also referenced a United Nations World Food Programme Gaza food security assessment published on December 6, which found that 9 out of 10 households in northern Gaza and 2 out of 3 households in southern Gaza had spent at least one full day and night without food.
CNN is not able to independently verify those numbers.
According to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, intentionally starving civilians by “depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including wilfully impeding relief supplies” is a war crime, Human Rights Watch said in its report.