Israel's systematic policy to enforce starvation in Gaza

Reposted from Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, August 22, 2025

The Israeli army’s deliberate killing of five Palestinian farmers while working on their land in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, reflects a recurring pattern and an ongoing systematic policy aimed at destroying any attempt to secure the minimum food supply through local production. This is part of Israel’s broader strategy to entrench starvation as a central tool in its ongoing genocide against Gaza’s population for the past 23 months.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor’s field team documented the killing of the five farmers after an Israeli drone fired at least one missile at them around 9:00 a.m. on Thursday, 21 August, while they were working on farmland east of Asdaa Prison, west of Khan Younis, in southern Gaza.

The five victims, all from the same family, were identified as: Suleiman and Mohammed Jamal Darwish al-Astal, Mousa Abdullah al-Astal, Mahmoud Naif Mustafa al-Astal, and Mohammed Marwan Ahmad al-Astal.

Israel’s escalating attacks on food sources in Gaza come just as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) formally declared famine in Gaza Governorate for the first time ever. In its report issued today, Friday, 22 August 2025, the global IPC index stated: “After 22 months of continuous conflict, more than half a million people in Gaza face catastrophic conditions characterized by extreme hunger, dire poverty, and death.”

The IPC further warned that famine is expected to spread to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis by the end of September 2025 if current trends continue.

The killing of the five farmers is not an isolated incident but part of a consistent and deliberate policy. Over the past months, Israeli forces have killed or injured hundreds of Palestinian farmers, while systematically destroying or occupying Gaza’s farmland. Today, Israel controls over 93 per cent of Gaza’s agricultural land, approximately 178,000 dunams, through bombardments, bulldozing, and military occupation, effectively dismantling Gaza’s food production capacity and stripping civilians of their most basic means of survival.

Israeli forces intentionally target Palestinian farmers working in the few agricultural areas that have not yet been destroyed, using airstrikes, direct gunfire, and repeated shelling. This has turned farmlands into high-risk zones where the simple act of trying to secure food has become a deadly gamble.

Ongoing bombings and ground incursions have also prevented farmers from accessing lands that survived earlier destruction, while other areas remain unusable due to the lack of irrigation caused by power outages, the destruction of water wells, and shortages of fuel required to operate irrigation systems.

Available data reveal the enormous scale of destruction inflicted by Israel on Gaza’s agricultural sector:

1,218 agricultural wells have been destroyed and rendered completely inoperative.
Planted vegetable areas have shrunk from 93,000 dunams to around 4,000 dunams only.
Over 85 per cent of greenhouses have been destroyed.

This amounts to the total collapse of Gaza’s food production system.

All of this is taking place under Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza, which keeps border crossings closed and allows in only a very limited number of aid trucks to restricted areas, while deliberately obstructing their security arrangements. This leaves the aid vulnerable to looting and prevents it from reaching hundreds of thousands of displaced people equitably.

International humanitarian law explicitly prohibits the use of starvation as a method of warfare, criminalizing the targeting of food sources and the destruction of agricultural infrastructure as they are essential to civilian survival. Israel’s denial of food and basic survival needs to Palestinians constitutes a war crime and a crime against humanity under international law.

Israel’s starvation policy is an act of genocide, given its prolonged implementation over months, the lethal deprivation it causes, and its devastating impact on civilian health and survival, despite Israel’s full knowledge of these consequences and repeated international warnings.

The right to food, water, and sanitation is a recognized human right under international law and can only be ensured by ending Israel’s genocide, lifting the blockade, and restoring basic living conditions in Gaza. Every day of delay pushes Gaza closer to a point of no return, costing more civilian lives and worsening public health disasters.

Euro-Med Monitor calls on the international community to take immediate and serious action to halt Israel’s genocide in Gaza, whether by direct killing or by engineered starvation that has rendered the territory nearly uninhabitable.

It also urges urgent measures to ensure unrestricted entry of humanitarian aid, including food, essential non-food items, and medical supplies, and to pressure Israel to allow the delivery of materials required to repair and restore Gaza’s civilian infrastructure, including fuel to operate water and sanitation systems, desalination plants, and water wells.

Euro-Med Monitor stresses the need to ensure accountability for Israel’s crimes, calling for the enforcement of International Criminal Court arrest warrants against the Israeli Prime Minister and former Defense Minister for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the deliberate starvation of civilians as a weapon of war and the obstruction of humanitarian aid.

It also calls on the international community to impose comprehensive economic, military, and diplomatic sanctions on Israel for its systematic and grave violations of international law, including:

A total arms embargo, including spare parts, software, and dual-use items.
Suspension of all forms of political, military, intelligence, and financial cooperation with Israel.
Freezing the financial assets of political and military officials implicated in crimes against Palestinians.
Imposing travel bans on those individuals.
Halting the operations of Israeli military and security companies in international markets and freezing their assets in global banks.
Suspending trade privileges, customs agreements, and bilateral arrangements that provide Israel with economic benefits facilitating its ongoing crimes.

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