Gaza: famine, one of the weapons of genocide

« In Gaza today, we can clearly speak of famine« , says Jean-Pierre Delomier, deputy director of operations for Handicap International (RFI, 25 March), as « ceaseless bombing » continue. Back from Rafah – in the south of the Gaza Strip, where 1.4 million refugees driven out by the Israeli army are packed together – Jean-Pierre Delomier says: « Five or seven kilometres before entering the Gaza Strip, I saw these lines of trucks. You have to remember that one lorry carries 20 tons of goods waiting and 100 metres is five trucks. So that’s 100 tons.” But for months the Israeli army has been blocking the entry preventing these thousands of tons of food transported by truck from entering Gaza. In Gaza, he adds, « every day is a desperate search for food for yourself and your family« .

Testimonies confirmed by other institutions. The director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which has just been banned by Israel from sending food aid to the north of the Strip, said: « This comes as a proof that blocking off vital aid during a provoked famine is intentional”.

Even the European Union and its chief diplomat, Borrell, consider that, « Israel is causing famine« , which is being used « as a weapon of war« . These criticisms do not prevent the European Union from maintaining all its association agreements with Israel (diplomatic, economic and military).

While the first children and babies have been declared dead from hunger and dehydration, the Israeli army is continuing its offensive against hospitals: Al Shifa, in Gaza City, al-Amal and Nasser, in Khan Younès. Raed al-Nems, spokesman for the Palestinian Red Crescent in Gaza, points out that « every one of the 36 hospitals in Gaza has been brutally attacked since 7 October » (L’Orient-Le Jour, 22 March).

How long will the « leading figures of this world » Biden, Macron, Sunak, Scholz and others continue to be complicit in this genocide?

Jean Alain