The Gaza government’s media office said Israel and the United States were using starvation as a means of exerting political pressure on the Palestinians and condemned the practice as “a war crime and a crime against humanity.”
In a statement released on Tuesday, the government media office condemned “in the strongest possible terms” Israel’s policy of starving civilians in the Gaza Strip and depriving them of food as a “means of political pressure” that comes with the “declared” approval of the US government.
Referring to recent statements by US President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, the statement categorically rejected linking the delivery of humanitarian aid and food to civilians, including women and children, to a ceasefire agreement between the Israeli regime and Palestinian resistance groups in the Gaza Strip.
“The linking of these two issues is a clear crime that must be condemned by the international community, international and UN organizations and all countries of the free world.”
The statement said that the Israeli army, with the green light from the United States, has been closing the Rafah border crossing between Palestine and Egypt for 105 days. The closure is part of the “crime of genocide committed by both sides against the civilian population in the Gaza Strip.”
The closure of the border crossing was a crime that violated international law, international humanitarian law and all international agreements and had “exacerbated the humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza “in an unprecedented way,” the office said.
“The crime of blocking the entry of any humanitarian aid, medical supplies, medical delegations and medicines (to Gaza) is seriously contributing to the deterioration of the health and humanitarian situation,” the statement warned.
The statement held Israel and the United States fully responsible for the “catastrophic” consequences of their use of hunger as a weapon against the people of the Gaza Strip and the closure of the Rafah border crossing.
The panel also called on the international community, international organizations and all free countries around the world to put pressure on Israel and the United States to end the genocidal war in the Gaza Strip, stop using food as a bargaining chip and open the Rafah border crossing.
Israel launched its genocidal war against Gaza on October 7, after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas launched the surprise Operation Storming Al-Aqsa against the occupied territory in response to the decades-long campaign of bloodshed and devastation against the Palestinians.
The regime’s bloody assault on Gaza has so far killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured tens of thousands more. Thousands more are missing and presumed dead under the rubble.
