XPost: or.politics, alt.usage.english, alt.society.liberalism   
   XPost: alt.military   
   From: void@invalid.noy   
      
   by Alex de Waal   
      
   Gaza is experiencing mass starvation like no other in recent history.   
   Before the outbreak of fighting in October, food security in Gaza was   
   precarious, but very few children – less than 1% – suffered severe   
   acute malnutrition, the most dangerous kind. Today, almost all Gazans,   
   of any age, anywhere in the territory, are at risk.   
      
   There is no instance since the second world war in which an entire   
   population has been reduced to extreme hunger and destitution with   
   such speed. And there’s no case in which the international obligation   
   to stop it has been so clear.   
      
   These facts underpinned South Africa’s recent case against Israel at   
   the international court of justice. The international genocide   
   convention, article 2c, prohibits “deliberately inflicting [on a   
   group] conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical   
   destruction in whole or in part”.   
      
   In ordering provisional measures to prevent potential genocide last   
   Friday, the ICJ didn’t rule on whether Israel is actually committing   
   genocide – that will take years of deliberation – but the judges made   
   it clear that the people of Gaza face “conditions of life” in which   
   their survival is in question. Even Justice Aharon Barak, appointed by   
   Israel to sit on the panel, voted in favour of immediate humanitarian   
   relief.   
      
   But a humanitarian disaster such as Gaza’s today is like a speeding   
   freight train. Even if the driver puts on the brakes, its momentum   
   will take it many miles before it stops. Palestinian children in Gaza   
   will die, in the thousands, even if the barriers to aid are lifted   
   today.   
      
   Starvation is a process. Famine can be its ultimate outcome, unless   
   stopped in time. The methodology used to categorize food emergencies   
   is called the integrated food security phase classification system, or   
   IPC. It’s a five-point scale, running from normal (phase 1), stressed,   
   crisis, and emergency, to catastrophe/famine (phase 5).   
      
   In categorizing food emergencies, the IPC draws on three measurements:   
   families’ access to food; child malnutrition; and the numbers of   
   people dying over and above normal rates. “Emergency” (phase 4)   
   already sees children dying. For a famine declaration, all three   
   measures need to pass a certain threshold; if only one is in that   
   zone, it’s “catastrophe”.   
      
   The IPC’s famine review committee is an independent group of experts   
   who assess evidence for the most extreme food crises, akin to a high   
   court of the world humanitarian system. The committee has already   
   assessed that the entirety of Gaza is under conditions of “emergency”.   
   Many areas in the territory are already in “catastrophe”, it said, and   
   might reach “famine” by early February.   
      
   Yet whether or not conditions are bad enough for an official   
   declaration of “famine” is less important than the situation today,   
   which is already killing children. Bear in mind that malnutrition   
   makes humans’ immune systems more vulnerable to diseases sparked by   
   lack of clean water and sanitation, and that those diseases are   
   accelerated by overcrowding in unhealthy camps.   
      
   Since the IPC was adopted 20 years ago, there have been major food   
   emergencies in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo,   
   Ethiopia’s Tigray region, north-east Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan,   
   Sudan and Yemen. Compared to Gaza, these have unfolded slowly, over   
   periods of a year or more. They have stricken larger populations   
   spread over wider areas. Hundreds of thousands died, most of them in   
   emergencies that didn’t cross the bar of famine.   
      
   And in the most notorious famines of the late 20th century – in China,   
   Cambodia, Nigeria’s Biafra and Ethiopia – the numbers who died were   
   far higher, but the starvation was also slower and more dispersed.   
      
   Never before Gaza have today’s humanitarian professionals seen such a   
   high proportion of the population descend so rapidly towards   
   catastrophe.   
      
   All modern famines are directly or indirectly man-made – sometimes by   
   indifference to suffering or dysfunction, other times by war crimes,   
   and in a few cases by genocide.   
      
   The Rome statute of the international criminal court, article   
   8(2)(b)(xxv), defines the war crime of starvation as “intentionally   
   using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them   
   of objects indispensable to their survival, including wilfully   
   impeding relief supplies as provided for under the Geneva   
   conventions”.   
      
   The main element of the crime is destruction and deprivation, not just   
   of food but of anything needed to sustain life, such as medicine,   
   clean water and shelter. Legally speaking, starvation can constitute   
   genocide or war crimes even if it doesn’t include outright famine.   
   People don’t have to die of hunger; the act of deprivation is enough.   
      
   Many wars are starvation crime scenes. In Sudan and South Sudan, it’s   
   widespread looting by marauding militia. In Ethiopia’s Tigray, farms,   
   factories, schools and hospitals were vandalized and burned, far in   
   excess of any military logic. In Yemen, most of the country was put   
   under starvation blockade. In Syria, the regime besieged cities,   
   demanding they “surrender or starve”.   
      
   The level of destruction of hospitals, water systems and housing in   
   Gaza, as well as restrictions of trade, employment and aid, surpasses   
   any of these cases.   
      
   It may be true, as Israel claims, that Hamas is using hospitals and   
   residential neighbourhoods for its own war effort. But that doesn’t   
   exonerate Israel. Much of Israel’s destruction of Gazan infrastructure   
   appears to be away from zones of active combat and in excess of what   
   is proportionate to military necessity.   
      
   The most extreme historical cases – such as Stalin’s Holodomor in   
   Ukraine in the 1930s and the Nazi “hunger plan” on the eastern front   
   during the second world war – were genocidal famines at immense scale.   
   Gaza doesn’t approach these, but Israel will need to act decisively if   
   it is to escape the charge of having used hunger to exterminate the   
   Palestinians. Starvation is a massacre in slow motion. And unlike   
   shooting or bombing, the dying continues for weeks even if killing is   
   halted.   
      
   This is the challenge facing the UN security council when it will soon   
   debate the ICJ’s provisional orders to Israel. Just allowing in aid   
   and putting some restraints on Israel’s military action are not going   
   to stop this thundering train of catastrophe quickly enough.   
      
   More than a month ago, the famine review committee wrote: “The   
   cessation of hostilities and the restoration of humanitarian space to   
   deliver this multi-sectoral assistance and restore services are   
   essential first steps in eliminating any risk of famine.” In other   
      
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