Smoke rises from Gaza, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, near the Israel-Gaza border, as seen from Israel on July 9, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

U.N. rights experts on July 9 accused Israel of carrying out a “targeted starvation campaign” that has resulted in the deaths of children in Gaza.

“Israel’s intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people is a form of genocidal violence and has resulted in famine across all of Gaza,” 10 independent United Nations experts said in a statement.

The U.N. has not officially declared a famine in the Gaza Strip.

But the experts, including the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food Michael Fakhri, insisted there was no denying famine was under way.

“Thirty-four Palestinians have died from malnutrition since 7 October, the majority being children,” said the experts, who are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, but who do not speak on behalf of the United Nations.

Also Read | UNICEF finds 90% of Gaza’s children lack food needed for proper growth

Israel’s mission to the U.N. in Geneva slammed the statement, charging that “Mr. Fakhri, and many so-called ‘experts’ who joined (him), are as much accustomed to spreading misinformation, as they are to supporting Hamas propaganda and shielding the terrorist organisation from scrutiny”.

Complicit

The U.N. experts meanwhile listed three children who had recently died “from malnutrition”, after a number of others were said to have starved to death in northern Gaza earlier this year.

Six-month-old Fayez Ataya and 13-year-old Abdulqader Al-Serhi had died on May 30 and June 1 at Gaza’s Al-Aqsa Hospital, while nine-year-old Ahmad Abu Reida died on June 3 in the tent sheltering his displaced family in Khan Yunis, they said.

“With the death of these children from starvation despite medical treatment in central Gaza, there is no doubt that famine has spread from northern Gaza into central and southern Gaza,” they said.

The experts decried that the world had not done more to avert this disaster.

“When a two-month-old baby and 10-year-old Yazan Al Kafarneh died of hunger on 24 February and 4 March respectively, this confirmed that famine had struck northern Gaza,” they said.

“The whole world should have intervened earlier to stop Israel’s genocidal starvation campaign and prevented these deaths.”

“Inaction is complicity.”

Gaza has been facing a deep humanitarian crisis since the war erupted following Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

In response, Israel has carried out a military offensive that has killed at least 38,243 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory.

‘Starvation warfare’

The World Health Organization said Tuesday that 60 cases of severe acute malnutrition, also known as severe wasting —the most deadly form of malnutrition — had been detected last week at the Kamal Adwan paediatric hospital in the north of the Strip.

The U.N. has long been warning of looming famine, especially in the north, but one has not been officially declared.

Also Read | The politics of humanitarian aid

The Israeli mission highlighted Tuesday that the latest assessment by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) partnership determined that famine had not materialised after aid access improved somewhat.

“Israel has continuously scaled up its coordination and assistance in the delivery of humanitarian aid across the Gaza Strip,” it said, claiming Hamas “intentionally steal and hide aid from civilians”.

Hamas authorities meanwhile issued a statement Tuesday describing a “humanitarian catastrophe and escalating famine”.

They accused “the terrorist Israeli government” of continuing “its policy of starvation”, and “preventing the entry of food aid trucks for the 64th consecutive day”.

“Continued starvation warfare threatens a humanitarian disaster and further loss of innocent children,” that statement warned.

Metres away from the concrete and steel fence separating the Gaza Strip from Egypt, 11-year-old Malak Ayad flies a paper kite high in the sky — a welcome distraction from the horrors of war.

“Every day I play with my brothers and cousins with kites next to the Egyptian border,” said the Palestinian girl, displaced from Gaza City with her family to the southern city of Rafah.

“When I do, I feel free and safe,” she added, gently manoeuvering her kite, which she calls “Butterfly”, back and forth across the border with a white string.

Her cousins and friends run along the fence trying, in vain, to get their kites to take flight, but a loud explosion in the distance makes them stop in their tracks.

“Quickly, the (Israeli) bombardment is getting closer,” said Malak’s uncle Mohammed Ayad, 24, urging the children to leave the area.

Malak quickly obeys, reeling in her kite and folding it, then rushes back to a tent where her family is taking shelter in the nearby Khir area.

“Playtime is over. When air strikes begin we run back home,” Malak said, trembling with fear.

The war began with Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack that resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign to destroy Hamas has killed at least 32,782 people, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza health ministry.

‘Trapped’

Malak Ayad and her family are among 1.5 million people, most of them displaced by the war, now living in Rafah, where Israel has vowed to carry a ground offensive as it pursues its campaign against Hamas.

Despite the war and the fear that grips her, Malak seems to be happy to fly her kite and dreams of life as it was before the war broke out on October 7.

“My kite flies to Egypt everyday while we are here trapped in Gaza,” said Malak, who wears a bracelet featuring the Palestinian flag.

“I don’t know when we will be able to return home,” she said, adding that her mother told her that her school has been hit by the Israeli army and “destroyed”.

Haitham Abu Ajwa, 34, who is also displaced from Gaza City, said kite flying “reminds me of my childhood”.

He too lives in a tent in Rafah with his wife and two boys, Mohammed, 5, and seven-months-old Adam

Flying kites helps to “free oneself of negative thoughts”, he said, and the border area with Egypt is “the ideal place to expel… the sadness and pain that we feel”.

“In the camps, you cannot feel free or comfortable,” said Abu Ajwa as he helped Mohammed fly a kite.

Dozens of children, some with their families, come daily to the border area in the afternoons to fly kites across the frontier.

Some start up conversations with Egyptian soldiers manning surveillance towers.

When Malak’s kite flew past the watchtower, one of the soldiers called out to her: “Well done, princess.”

The little girl thanked him with a wave and said, “I love Egypt. My wish is to travel there like my kite.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Four more children have died of “malnutrition and dehydration” in war-torn Gaza, the Hamas-ruled territory’s health ministry said on Friday, the latest such reported deaths as famine warnings mount.

The deaths occurred at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said in a statement, noting that the number of child “malnutrition and dehydration” deaths now totalled 10.

Earlier Friday, a spokesman for the UN humanitarian agency OCHA told reporters that “if something doesn’t change, a famine is almost inevitable” in Gaza.

“Once a famine is declared, it is too late for too many people,” said the spokesman, Jens Laerke.

Global attention turned to the dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza on Thursday, when the health ministry said more than 100 people were killed after desperate Palestinians rushed an aid convoy.

Israeli troops opened fire as Palestinian civilians scrambled for food supplies during a chaotic disturbance.

World leaders called on Friday for an investigation into the deaths and a ceasefire nearly five months into the war, which kicked off with Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of around 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive to eliminate Hamas has now killed at least 30,228, mostly women and children, according to the ministry’s latest toll.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)