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the razing of agricultural land continued in northern Gaza during the seven-day ceasefire, which began on November 24 and ended on December
1, when the Israeli military was in direct control of the area.

While the Israeli government allowed a steady and slightly increased
stream of humanitarian aid, including cooking gas for the first time
since October 7, to enter the Gaza Strip during the seven-day
ceasefire that ended on December 1, it deliberately hindered the entry
of relief supplies at the scale needed for over a month prior, while
it imposed a siege affecting the entire civilian population. This
contributed to a catastrophic humanitarian situation of far-reaching consequences with over 80 percent of the population internally
displaced, many of whom have been sheltering in overcrowded, unhealthy
and unsanitary conditions at UN shelters in the south. The aid that
entered during the ceasefire “barely registers against the huge needs
of 1.7 million displaced people,” said UN spokesperson Stephane
Dujarric on November 27.

Some 200 trucks, including four tankers carrying up to 130,000 liters
of fuel and four tankers of cooking gas, entered Gaza each day of the ceasefire. In comparison, an average of 500 trucks of food and goods
entered Gaza each day before the conflict and 600,000 liters of fuel
are needed in Gaza per day just to operate water and desalinization
plants. As the bombardment resumed and Israeli forces advanced south,
aid access was again severely hindered. On December 5, for the third consecutive day, OCHA reported that only Rafah governorate in Gaza
received limited aid distributions. In the adjacent Khan Younis
governorate, it said aid distribution largely stopped due to the
intensity of hostilities.

Accounts from Civilians in Gaza
Human Rights Watch spoke to 11 civilians who evacuated northern Gaza
to the perceived safety of the south due to heavy bombardment, fear of imminent airstrikes, or because Israel ordered them to evacuate.
Several said they were displaced a number of times before reaching the
south, as they struggled to find suitable shelters and safety along
their journey. In the south, they found overcrowded shelters, empty
markets and soaring prices, and long lines for limited supplies of
bread and drinking water. To protect their identities, Human Rights
Watch is using pseudonyms for all those interviewed.

“I have to walk three kilometers to get one gallon [of water],” said 30-year-old Marwan, who fled to the south with his pregnant wife and
two children on November 9. “And there is no food. If we are able to
find food, it is canned food. Not all of us are eating well.”

“We don’t have enough of anything,” said 36-year-old Hana, who fled
her home in the north to Khan Younis in the south with her father, his
wife and her brother on October 11. She said that in the south they
don’t always have access to clean water, forcing them to drink
nonpotable, salty, water.

Bathing has become a luxury, she said, due to the lack of means to
heat water, requiring them to scavenge for wood. In desperate
situations, she said, they even resort to burning old clothes for
cooking. The process of making bread poses its own challenges, given
the scarcity of ingredients that they cannot afford. “We make bad
bread because we don’t have all the ingredients and we cannot afford
it,” she said.

Majed, 34, who fled with his wife and four surviving children to the
south on or around November 10 said that while the situation in the
south was dire, it was incomparable to what he and his family had to
endure while staying in the north. They had been in an area near
al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City for just over a month after their house
was bombed on October 13, killing Majed’s 6-year-old son:

“In those 33 days we didn’t have bread because there was no flour,” he said. “There was no water – we were buying water, sometimes for
[US]$10 a cup. It wasn’t always drinkable. Sometimes, [the water we
drank] was from the bathroom and sometimes from the sea. The markets
around the area were empty. There wasn’t even canned food.”

Taher, 32, who fled south with his family on November 11, described
similar conditions in Gaza city in the first weeks of November. “The
city was out of everything, of food and water,” he said. “If you find canned food, the prices were so high. We decided to eat just once a
day to survive. We were running out of money. We decided to just have
the necessities, to have less of everything.”

International Standards and Evidence of Deliberate Action
Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited under
article 54(1) of the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva
Conventions (Protocol I) and article 14 of the Second Additional
Protocol (Protocol II). Although Israel is not a party to Protocols I
or II, the prohibition is recognized as reflective of customary
international humanitarian law in both international and
noninternational armed conflicts. Parties to a conflict may not
“provoke [starvation] deliberately” or deliberately cause “the
population to suffer hunger, particularly by depriving it of its
sources of food or of supplies.”

Warring parties are also prohibited from attacking objects
indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as food
and medical supplies, agricultural areas, and drinking water
installations. They are obligated to facilitate rapid and unimpeded humanitarian assistance to all civilians in need, and to not
deliberately block humanitarian aid or restrict the freedom of
movement of humanitarian relief personnel. In each of its four
previous wars in Gaza since 2008, Israel maintained the flow of
drinking water and electricity into Gaza and opened the Israeli
crossings for humanitarian delivery.

Evidence of intent to deliberately use starvation as a method of
warfare can be demonstrated by public statements of officials involved
in military operations. The following high-ranking Israeli officials
could be expected to play a significant role in determining policy
with respect to allowing or blocking food and other necessities to the civilian population.

On October 9, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said: “We are imposing a complete siege on [Gaza]. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel – everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we must act accordingly.”

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said in a tweet on October
17, “So long as Hamas does not release the hostages – the only thing
that should enter Gaza is hundreds of tons of air force explosives –
not an ounce of humanitarian aid.”

Energy Minister Israel Katz, who reported that he ordered the cuts to electricity and water, said on October 11:

“For years, we have given Gaza electricity, water, and fuel. Instead
of a thank you, they sent thousands of human animals to butcher,
murder, rape and kidnap babies, women and elderly people. This is why
we have decided to cut off the supply of water, electricity and fuel,
and now, the local power plant has collapsed, and there is no
electricity in Gaza. We will keep holding a tight siege until the
Hamas threat is lifted from Israel and the world. What has been will
be no more.”

Katz said on October 12:

“Humanitarian aid to Gaza? Not a switch will be flicked on, not a
valve will be opened, not a fuel truck will enter until the Israeli
hostages come home. Humanitarian for humanitarian. Let no one lecture
us about morality.”

He said on October 16:

“I supported the agreement between PM [Prime Minister] Netanyahu and President Biden to supply water to the southern Gaza Strip because it
aligned with Israeli interests too. I am vehemently opposed to lifting
the blockade and letting goods into Gaza for humanitarian reasons. Our commitment is to the families of the murdered and to the kidnapped
hostages – not Hamas murderers and the people who helped them.”

On November 4, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declared that no fuel
must enter Gaza “under any circumstances.” He later called Israel’s
war cabinet’s decision to permit small amounts to enter the strip “a
grave mistake” and said that it “stop this scandal immediately and
prevent fuel from coming into the Strip,” as reported by the Jerusalem
Post.

In a video posted online on November 4, Col. Yogev Bar-Shesht, deputy
head of the Civil Administration, said in an interview from inside
Gaza, “Whoever returns here, if they return here after, will find
scorched earth. No houses, no agriculture, no nothing. They have no
future.”

On November 24, in a televised interview with CNN, Mark Regev, senior
adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said that Israel
was depriving Gaza of fuel since October 7 to strengthen Israel’s
position when it came to negotiating with Hamas on release of
hostages. “Had we done so [allowed the fuel in] … we would never have gotten our hostages out,” he said.

On December 1, the Defense Ministry’s coordinator of government
activities in the territories, Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian, said that the
entry of fuel and aid to Gaza was halted after Hamas violated the
conditions of the ceasefire agreement. His office confirmed his
statement in response to a Times of Israel query, stating: “After the
Hamas terror organization violated the agreement and in addition fired
at Israel, the entry of humanitarian aid was stopped in the manner
stipulated in the agreement.”

Other officials have since October 7 called for the limited entry of humanitarian aid to Gaza, saying that doing so serves Israel’s
military aims.

Prime Minister Netanyahu on December 5 answered a question about
Israel potentially losing leverage against Hamas if it allowed more humanitarian aid into Gaza, saying: “The war efforts are supported by
the humanitarian effort … this is because we follow laws of war
because we know that if there would be a collapse – diseases,
pandemics, and groundwater infections – it will stop the fighting.”

Defense Minister Gallant said: “We’re required to allow the
humanitarian minimum to allow for the military pressure to continue.”

Tzachi Hanegbi, Israel's national security adviser, said at a news
conference on November 17: “If there is an epidemic, the fighting will
be stopped. If there is a humanitarian crisis and an international
outcry, we will not be able to continue the fighting under those conditions.”

On October 18, the Office of the Prime Minister announced that Israel
would not prevent humanitarian aid from entering Gaza from Egypt
following pressure from the US and other international allies:

“In light of President Biden’s demand, Israel will not thwart
humanitarian supplies from Egypt as long as it is only food, water and medicine for the civilian population in the southern Gaza Strip.”

Destruction of Agricultural Products and Impacts on Food Production

During ground operations in northern Gaza, Israeli forces have
apparently destroyed agricultural products, exacerbating shortages of
food with long-term effects. This has included razing orchards,
fields, and greenhouses.

Israel's military said it conducted military operations in the Beit
Hanoun area, including in an undisclosed agricultural area in Beit
Hanoun, to clear tunnels and other military objectives.

Fields and orchards north of Beit Hanoun, for example, were first
damaged during hostilities following Israel’s ground operations in
late October. Bulldozers carved new roads, clearing the way for
Israeli military vehicles.

Since mid-November, after Israeli forces took control of the same area
in northeastern Gaza, satellite imagery shows that orchards, fields,
and greenhouses have been systematically razed, leaving sand and dirt.
Human Rights Watch contacted the Israel Defense Forces for comment on December 8 but has not received a response.

Farmers in this area planted crops such as citrus fruit, potatoes,
dragon fruit, and prickly pear, contributing to the livelihoods of Palestinians in Gaza. Other crops include tomatoes, cabbage, and strawberries. Some plots were razed in a day. Trees that yield citrus
fruit, as well as the cacti that yield dragon fruit, take years of
care to mature before they can yield fruit.

High resolution satellite imagery shows bulldozers were used to
destroy fields and orchards. Tracks are visible, as well as mounds of
earth on the edges of the former plots.

Whether by deliberate razing, damage due to hostilities or the
inability to irrigate or work the land, farmland across northern Gaza
has been drastically reduced since the beginning of the Israeli ground operations.

Farms and farmers in southern Gaza have also been affected. Action
Against Hunger found that of 113 farmers from southern Gaza surveyed
between October 19 and 31, 60 percent reported that their assets
and/or crops have been damaged, 42 percent reported that they had no
access to water to irrigate their farms, and 43 percent reported that
they were unable to harvest their crops.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/12/18/israel-starvation-used-weapon-war-gaza

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