Following repeated warnings by the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), Unicef and others of a risk of famine throughout 2024, Israel‘s systematic denial of food, water and medicine to Gaza has reached its inevitable conclusion: mass starvation, with hundreds already killed as a direct result of intentional deprivation.
Condemnation of Israel’s use of starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza has grown in recent weeks. And yet all this moment has revealed is the exceptional threshold for even the most basic display of liberal concern.
Palestinians must be starved to death on camera, in full view of the world, before the western political class shows a modicum of unease.
Even then, it is only suffering inflicted on Palestinian children that appears to evoke discomfort.
In the UK, both Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary David Lammy have placed particular emphasis on hunger and malnutrition among children. Lammy has described “innocent children holding out their hand for food”, while Starmer has expressed that “images of starving children in particular are revolting”. …..more
