Gaza Famine

Entire UN Security Council Except US Says Gaza Famine ‘Man-Made’ as 10 More People Starve to Death

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Original article by Brett Wilkins republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

US Ambassador to the United Nations Dorothy Shea speaks on August 27, 2025. (Photo: US Mission to the United Nations/X)

While acknowledging that “hunger is a real issue in Gaza,” the US ambassador to the UN repeated a debunked claim that the world’s leading authority on starvation lowered its standards to declare a famine.


Every member nation of the United Nations Security Council except the United States on Wednesday affirmed that Israel’s engineered famine in Gaza is “man-made” as 10 more Palestinians died of starvation amid what UN experts warned is a worsening crisis.

Fourteen of the 15 Security Council members issued a joint statement calling for an immediate Gaza ceasefire, release of all remaining hostages held by Hamas, and lifting of all Israeli restrictions on aid delivery into the embattled strip, where hundreds of Palestinians have died from starvation and hundreds of thousands more are starving.

“Famine in Gaza must be stopped immediately,” they said. “Time is of the essence. The humanitarian emergency must be addressed without delay and Israel must reverse course.”

“We express our profound alarm and distress at the IPC data on Gaza, published last Friday. It clearly and unequivocally confirms famine,” the statement said, referring to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification’s declaration of Phase 5, or a famine “catastrophe,” in the strip.

“We trust the IPC’s work and methodology,” the 14 countries declared. “This is the first time famine has been officially confirmed in the Middle East region. Every day, more persons are dying as a result of malnutrition, many of them children.”

“This is a man-made crisis,” the statement stresses. “The use of starvation as a weapon of war is clearly prohibited under international humanitarian law.”

Israel, which is facing a genocide case at the UN’s International Court of Justice, denies the existence of famine in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted by the International Court of Justice for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder and forced starvation.

The 14 countries issuing the joint statement are: Algeria, China, Denmark, France, Greece, Guyana, Pakistan, Panama, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, Somalia, and the United Kingdom.

While acknowledging that “hunger is a real issue in Gaza and that there are significant humanitarian needs which must be met,” US Ambassador to the UN Dorothy Shea rejected the resolution and the IPC’s findings.

“We can only solve problems with credibility and integrity,” Shea told the Security Council. “Unfortunately, the recent report from the IPC doesn’t pass the test on either.”

Shea also repeated the debunked claim that the IPC’s “normal standards were changed for [the IPC famine] declaration.”

The Security Council’s affirmation that the Gaza famine is man-made mirrors the findings of food experts who have accused Israel of orchestrating a carefully planned campaign of mass starvation in the strip.

The UN Palestinian Rights Bureau and UN humanitarian officials also warned Wednesday that the famine in Gaza is “only getting worse.”

“Over half a million people currently face starvation, destitution, and death,” the humanitarian experts said. “By the end of September, that number could exceed 640,000.”

“Failure to act now will have irreversible consequences,” they added.

Wednesday’s UN actions came as Israel intensified Operation Gideon’s Chariots 2, the campaign to conquer, occupy, and ethnically cleanse around 1 million Palestinians from Gaza, possibly into a reportedly proposed concentration camp that would be built over the ruins of the southern city of Rafah.

The Gaza Health Ministry (GHM) on Wednesday reported 10 more Palestinian deaths “due to famine and malnutrition” over the past 24 hours, including two children, bringing the number of famine victims to at least 313, 119 of them children.

All told, Israel’s 691-day assault and siege on Gaza has left at least 230,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, according to the GHM.

Original article by Brett Wilkins republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingEntire UN Security Council Except US Says Gaza Famine ‘Man-Made’ as 10 More People Starve to Death

It’s time for Israel to stop denying Gaza famine: UNRWA chief

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This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 

UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini on April 30, 2024 [FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images]

The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) on Saturday urged Israel to stop denying responsibility for the famine it caused in the Gaza Strip and called on influential states to act immediately to end the crisis, Anadolu reports.

“It’s time for the Government of Israel to stop denying the famine it has created in Gaza,” Philippe Lazzarini said on US social media platform X.

“All of those who have influence must use it with determination and a sense of moral duty. Every hour counts,” he added.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), the UN-backed global hunger monitor, confirmed on Friday that famine has been established in Gaza governorate, projecting that it will spread to central and southern areas of the enclave by the end of September.

Israel has killed more than 62,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023. The military campaign has devastated the enclave, led to deaths by starvation, forced migration and spread of disease.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.

READ: IPC formally declares famine in Gaza Governorate, marks 1st in Middle East

Experiencing issues with this image not appearing. I suspect because it's so critical of Zionist Keir Starmer's support of and complicity in Israel's genocides.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
UK Labour Party government Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are participants and complicit in Israel's Gaza genocide providing Israel with army and air force support. They explain that they don't do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
UK Labour Party government Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are participants and complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide providing Israel with army and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
Vote Labour for Genocide.
Vote Labour for Genocide.
Continue ReadingIt’s time for Israel to stop denying Gaza famine: UNRWA chief

Arab states accuse Israel of genocide after UN confirms Gaza famine

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This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani, and Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit pose for a group photo after issuing a joint statement condemning Israel’s decision to block their planned diplomatic visit to Ramallah, at a meeting held in Amman, Jordan on June 1, 2025. [Jordan Foreign Ministry – Anadolu Agency]

Arab states on Friday condemned Israel for the famine officially declared in the Gaza Strip, with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Muslim World League and Palestine accusing Tel Aviv of committing grave crimes against starving civilians and demanding urgent international intervention, Anadolu reports.

In a statement, the Saudi Foreign Ministry accused Israel of committing genocide against civilians in Gaza, describing the famine as a “stain on the conscience of humanity.”

The ministry said the famine, confirmed by the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), is a direct result of systematic crimes committed by the Israeli army, including the obstruction of humanitarian aid and forced displacement of civilians under siege.

“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia expresses its deep concern following the IPC report and the official declaration of famine in Gaza,” the ministry said.

“The continuation of these crimes without deterrence or accountability represents a disgrace to the international community.”

Riyadh condemned what it called “repeated genocide crimes” by Israeli forces and called on the international community, particularly permanent members of the UN Security Council, to take urgent steps to end the famine and stop Israel’s extermination war against the Palestinian people.

Kuwait also denounced Israel’s policy of starvation, repression, and forced displacement in Gaza.

In a statement, the Foreign Ministry called on the international community to stop the ongoing genocide in Gaza and hold Israel accountable for crimes against humanity, citing UN Security Council Resolution 2417, which prohibits the use of starvation as a weapon of war.

READ: Arab states decry Netanyahu’s ‘Greater Israel’ comments

The GCC likewise urged immediate international pressure on Israel to open crossings and allow unrestricted humanitarian aid into Gaza.

GCC Secretary-General Jasem al-Budaiwi called the famine a result of Israel’s “inhumane starvation policies” and reaffirmed support for Palestinian rights and protection under international law.

Jordanian Foreign Ministry spokesman Sufyan Qudah called the declaration “a dangerous indicator of the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, resulting from the systematic inhumane policies and measures by the Israeli government that have turned starvation into a weapon against the Palestinians.”

He condemned Israel’s continued restrictions on the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza, which he said have led to “alarming levels of famine.”

Qudah called on the international community to “act immediately and without delay to compel Israel to end its aggression on Gaza, put an end to the famine and humanitarian catastrophe caused by the aggression, and ensure the sufficient and sustainable entry of aid into the Strip.”

A statement by the Muslim World League (MWL) General Secretariat, Mohammed bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa, and chairman of the Organization of Muslim Scholars, stressed that “this extremist government poses a grave threat to the Palestinian people in particular, as well as to the region and the international community at large.”

His renewed the MWL’s “urgent appeal to the international community to assume its moral and legal responsibilities, to take an immediate and decisive stand to end the famine and genocide inflicted upon the people of Gaza, and to deter the occupation government’s war machine, which continues its tyranny and disregard for the lives, rights, and human dignity of the Palestinian people.”

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry called for “decisive international action to compel the occupying state, Israel, to immediately halt the crimes of genocide, displacement, and annexation, as the only way to stop, contain, and address famine, prevent its spread, ensure the opening of crossings, allow sustainable delivery of humanitarian aid, and begin the immediate reconstruction of Gaza.”

It “urged relevant international courts to assume their legal and moral responsibilities regarding the perpetrators of famine, including upholding international law in addressing all acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people witnessed by the world.”

The ministry also affirmed that the IPC report “has left no room for interpretation and speculation regarding the occurrence of famine in Gaza.”

Hamas said the UN report on the spread of famine in Gaza governorate represents “conclusive international testimony to the crime being committed by Israel.”

The group said the announcement “constitutes undeniable international evidence of the crime perpetrated by the Zionist occupation against more than two million besieged people.”

It called for the UN and the Security Council to “act immediately to stop the war, lift the blockade, and open the crossings without restrictions to allow the urgent and continuous entry of food, medicine, water and fuel.”

The IPC’s latest report, released Friday, confirmed that famine conditions are already present in Gaza, affecting over 500,000 people. The crisis, described by UN agencies as entirely man-made, is projected to spread further south in the coming weeks, unless a large-scale humanitarian response is urgently allowed.

UN officials and humanitarian agencies have blamed Israel’s blockade, destruction of civilian infrastructure, repeated displacement, and severe restrictions on aid deliveries as the main drivers of the famine.

Israel has killed nearly 62,300 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023. The military campaign has devastated the enclave, which is facing famine.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.​​​​​​​

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.

READ: ‘No time to lose’: UN agencies call for immediate humanitarian access to famine-declared Gaza

Experiencing issues with this image not appearing. I suspect because it's so critical of Zionist Keir Starmer's support of and complicity in Israel's genocides.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
UK Labour Party government Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are participants and complicit in Israel's Gaza genocide providing Israel with army and air force support. They explain that they don't do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
UK Labour Party government Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are participants and complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide providing Israel with army and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
Vote Labour for Genocide.
Vote Labour for Genocide.
Continue ReadingArab states accuse Israel of genocide after UN confirms Gaza famine

Failed US Military Pier Offered ‘Humanitarian Gloss’ as Israel Starved Gaza

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Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

U.S. troops prepare components of the Gaza aid pier on March 15, 2024. (Photo: United States Naval Institute)

“The entire operation was a failed exercise in public relations by the Biden administration,” said one observer.

After failing to re-anchor its “humanitarian pier” in Gaza, the Pentagon said Thursday that the much-ballyhooed project—which critics dismissed as a “public relations ploy” that did next to nothing to stop the deadly starvation spreading in the besieged Palestinian enclave—would shut down indefinitely.

Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder said U.S. troops had failed to reconnect the floating Trident Pier to Gaza’s shore due to “technical and weather-related issues,” according to The Washington Post.

The $320 million project—which consists of a floating offshore barge and 1,800-foot causeway to the shore—was touted as eventually being able to accommodate up to 150 aid trucks per day. Instead, it facilitated the shipment of the equivalent of about a single day’s worth of prewar food deliveries while operating for a total of less than three weeks.

“As a pier, it’s shutting down. As a metaphor, it will live forever,” said Tom Philpott, a senior researcher at Johns Hopkins University’s Center for a Livable Future.

Stephen Semler, co-founder of the Security Policy Reform Institute, welcomed the project’s demise.

“The U.S. pier was never supposed to work. It was designed to give a humanitarian gloss to [U.S. President Joe] Biden’s pro-genocide policy in Gaza,” he said on social media. “Good riddance to this failed PR stunt.”

However, during a Thursday press conference, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan defended the pier, arguing that it “has made a difference in trying to deal with the heartbreaking humanitarian situation in Gaza.”

“I see any result that produces more food, more humanitarian goods getting to the people of Gaza, as a success,” he asserted. “It is additive. It is something additional that otherwise would not have gotten there when it got there. And that is a good thing.”

Even if the pier had achieved its expected capacity, it would still have been far fewer than the prewar daily mean of more than 500 truckloads that U.S. and United Nations officials said are required to meet the needs of a population facing critical shortages of food, water, medicine, and other lifesaving supplies.

The pier was in operation for only about 20 days in May before it broke apart during stormy conditions. The structure was subsequently repaired, but then was dismantled just a week after reopening in June due to more rough seas.

It is also likely that the pier was used for military purposes during the June raid by Israel Defense Forces troops, who killed or wounded hundreds of Palestinians—including many women and children—during the rescue of four Israelis kidnapped by Hamas militants on October 7.

“It seems clear that the entire operation was a failed exercise in public relations by the Biden administration, which has sat on its hands while the extremist Netanyahu cabinet, full of the Israeli equivalent of neo-Nazis, has half-starved or in some instances whole-starved the Palestinians of Gaza,” Middle East expert Juan Cole wrote Friday, referring to the far-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

At least dozens of Palestinians, mostly children, have died in Gaza due to a lack of food, water, and medical treatment. Palestinian and international agencies say that Israel’s 280-day war on Gaza has left at least 137,500 people dead, maimed, or missing; around 90% of the embattled strip’s population forcibly displaced; and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians starving.

“A U.S. administration has to have an answer when reporters ask it why it is allowing Palestinian children to become emaciated, and the pier was an attempted answer,” Cole added. “The other possibility was for the Biden administration to man up and just tell Netanyahu and his rogues’ gallery cabinet that they cannot starve innocent civilians as part of their campaign against Hamas, and that if they do not cut it out there will be hell to pay. But Biden is in the tank for the Israeli government.”

U.N. experts and others have called Israel’s forced starvation of Palestinians in Gaza “a form of genocidal violence and has resulted in famine.”

The International Court of Justice—which is weighing whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza—has ordered Israel to prevent genocidal acts in the embattled enclave, to “immediately halt” its offensive in Rafah, and to stop blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza in the face of worsening “famine and starvation.” Israel is accused of flouting all three ICJ orders.

Meanwhile, International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan accused top Israeli officials of using “starvation as a weapon of war” and “extermination” in his May application for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Khan is also seeking to arrest three Hamas leaders for alleged crimes including extermination and rape.

Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue ReadingFailed US Military Pier Offered ‘Humanitarian Gloss’ as Israel Starved Gaza