After 21 months of harrowing images from Gaza, photographs this week of emaciated children still have the power to shock. More than 100 international aid organisations and human rights groups have issued urgent warnings of mass starvation and called on governments worldwide to intervene. The United Nations and humanitarian agencies have warned that Gaza is on the brink of running out of specialised therapeutic food needed to save the lives of severely malnourished children.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces continue to fire on Palestinian civilians who are desperately seeking food, killing hundreds. A fresh incursion by the Israel Defense Forces into central Gaza has wrought yet more destruction and death.
Any prospect of an end to the violence remains elusive. Early hopes of a breakthrough in ceasefire talks, sparked by an initially positive Israeli response to the latest proposals from Hamas, were extinguished within hours when the US and Israel withdrew their negotiating teams from Qatar, saying Hamas was not acting in good faith.
With reports of rising starvation in Gaza growing ever more urgent, a far-right minister in the Israeli government made a deeply disturbing statement on Thursday. Amichay Eliyahu declared that Israel had no duty to alleviate hunger in the territory and was actively seeking to expel its population. His chilling comparison that “there is no nation that feeds its enemies” – adding that “the British didn’t feed the Nazis, nor did the Americans feed the Japanese” – displays a disregard for Palestinian lives as well as being a gross misrepresentation of the nature of the current conflict.
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As an occupying power with total control over Gaza’s entry points and overwhelming military dominance over its civilian population, Israel bears clear responsibility for what is happening there. Although Israeli military officials denied that Eliyahu’s statements reflected their strategy in Gaza, Binyamin Netanyahu’s government declined to rebut them. The contempt for human rights expressed by the minister lends credence to accusations that Israel is engaged in systematic war crimes and crimes against humanity.
In a notable development on Friday, French president Emmanuel Macron announced that France would recognise the state of Palestine at the United Nations General Assembly in September. The decision was predictably condemned by the American and Israeli governments. But, coming from a major power, it marks a significant shift. Taoiseach Micheál Martin was correct, however, when he said last month that the inability of EU member states to come to a unified position on the issue was a “stain” on the union.
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza demands immediate action. The silence of some world leaders is dangerously close to complicity. It is no longer sustainable.
