Palestinians gather to receive aid, including food supplies provided by World Food Program, outside a United Nations distribution center, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, on August 24, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Israel’s warfare in Gaza is consistent with the characteristics of genocide, a special U.N. committee said Thursday (November 14, 2024), accusing the country of “using starvation as a method of war”.

The United Nations Special Committee pointed to “mass civilian casualties and life-threatening conditions intentionally imposed on Palestinians”, in a fresh report covering the period from Hamas’s deadly October 7 attack in Israel last year through to July.

“Through its siege over Gaza, obstruction of humanitarian aid, alongside targeted attacks and killing of civilians and aid workers, despite repeated U.N. appeals, binding orders from the International Court of Justice and resolutions of the Security Council, Israel is intentionally causing death, starvation and serious injury,” it said in a statement.

Israel’s warfare practices in Gaza “are consistent with the characteristics of genocide”, said the committee, which has for decades been investigating Israeli practices affecting rights in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Israel, it charged, was “using starvation as a method of war and inflicting collective punishment on the Palestinian population”.

A U.N.-backed assessment at the weekend warned that famine was imminent in northern Gaza.

Thursday’s (November 14, 2024) report documented how Israel’s extensive bombing campaign in Gaza had decimated essential services and unleashed an environmental catastrophe with lasting health impacts.

By February this year, Israeli forces had used more than 25,000 tonnes of explosives across the Gaza Strip, “equivalent to two nuclear bombs”, the report pointed out.

AI-assisted targeting

“By destroying vital water, sanitation and food systems, and contaminating the environment, Israel has created a lethal mix of crises that will inflict severe harm on generations to come,” the committee said.

The committee said it was “deeply alarmed by the unprecedented destruction of civilian infrastructure and the high death toll in Gaza”, where more than 43,700 people have been killed since the war began, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

The staggering number of deaths raised serious concerns, it said, about Israel’s use of artificial intelligence-enhanced targeting systems in its military operations.

“The Israeli military’s use of AI-assisted targeting, with minimal human oversight, combined with heavy bombs, underscores Israel’s disregard of its obligation to distinguish between civilians and combatants and take adequate safeguards to prevent civilian deaths,” it said.

It warned that reported new directives lowering the criteria for selecting targets and increasing the previously accepted ratio of civilian to combatant casualties appeared to have allowed the military to use AI systems to “rapidly generate tens of thousands of targets, as well as to track targets to their homes, particularly at night when families shelter together”.

The committee stressed the obligations of other countries to urgently act to halt the bloodshed, saying that “other States are unwilling to hold Israel accountable and continue to provide it with military and other support”.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report classified that as IPC Phase 5 — a situation when “starvation, death, destitution and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels are evident
| Photo Credit: AFP

Famine is looming in the northern Gaza Strip amid increased hostilities and a near-halt in food aid, a U.N.-backed assessment said on Saturday (November 10, 2024).

The alert from the Famine Review Committee warned of “an imminent and substantial likelihood of famine occurring, due to the rapidly deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip.”

“Famine thresholds may have already been crossed or else will be in the near future,” said the alert.

On October 17, the body projected that the number of people in Gaza facing “catastrophic” food insecurity between November and April 2025 would reach 3,45,000, or 16% of the population.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report classified that as IPC Phase 5 — a situation when “starvation, death, destitution and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels are evident.”

“Since that report, conditions have worsened in the north of Gaza, with a collapse of food systems, a drop in humanitarian aid and critical water, sanitation and hygiene conditions,” the committee said.

“It can therefore be assumed that starvation, malnutrition, and excess mortality due to malnutrition and disease, are rapidly increasing in these areas,” it read.

Vast areas of the Gaza Strip have been devastated by Israel’s retaliatory assault launched after the October 7 attack last year by Hamas.

Israeli forces have intensified their operations in large swathes of the Gaza Strip’s north since early October, where evacuation orders are in place.

“Aid shipments allowed to enter the Gaza Strip were now lower than at any time since October 2023,” said the report.

“Access to food continues to deteriorate, with prices of essentials on the black market soaring. Cooking gas rose by 2,612%, diesel by 1,315% and wood by 250 percent,” it said.

“Concurrent with the extremely high and increasing prices of essential items has been the total collapse of livelihoods to be able to purchase or barter for food and other basic needs,” said the alert.

The body expressed concern over Israel’s cutting ties last month with the U.N. aid agency for Palestinians (UNRWA), warning of “extremely serious consequences for humanitarian operations” in Gaza.