News Center-Amnesty International published new testimonies of starved displaced civilians in the Gaza Strip on Monday, saying that Israel is carrying out a deliberate campaign of starvation in the occupied Gaza Strip, systematically destroying the health, well-being and social fabric of Palestinian life.

The accounts of testimonies of starved displaced civilians “underscore the organization’s repeated findings that the deadly combination of hunger and disease is not an unfortunate byproduct of Israel’s military operations. It is the intended outcome of plans and policies that Israel has designed and implemented, over the past 22 months, to deliberately inflict on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction – which is part and parcel of Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.”

“As Israeli authorities escalate their attacks on Gaza City and threaten to launch a full-scale ground invasion, the testimonies we have collected are far more than accounts of suffering, they are a searing indictment of an international system that has granted Israel a license to torment Palestinians with near-total impunity for decades,” said Erika Guevara Rosas, Senior Director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns at Amnesty International.”

 

Erika Guevara Rosas called for an immediate, unconditional lifting of the blockade and a sustained ceasefire to “even begin reversing the devastating consequences of Israel’s inhumane policies and actions, which have made mass starvation a grim reality in Gaza.”

“The impact of Israel’s blockade and its ongoing genocide on civilians, particularly on children, people with disabilities, those with chronic illnesses, older people and pregnant and breastfeeding women is catastrophic and cannot be undone by simply increasing the number of aid trucks or restoring performative, ineffective and dangerous airdrops of aid.”

Over the last few weeks, Amnesty International interviewed 19 Palestinians, who are now residing in three makeshift camps for internally displaced people (IDPs), as well as two medical staff members treating malnourished children in two hospitals in Gaza City.

As of 17 August, the Ministry of Health in Gaza recorded the deaths of 110 children from malnutrition-related complications.