“The goal of the Israeli government is abundantly clear: the destruction of life in Gaza,” said Navi Pillay, Chair of the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Once described as a Mediterranean jewel, the Gaza Strip has been transformed into an unrecognisable wasteland. Since October 2023, Israel has deepened its blockade of the territory, cutting off the lifelines of food, water, medical supplies and electricity. The siege has not just been about military operations—it is a calculated policy to dismantle civilian life which is called ‘genocide’ as well.
A July 2025 report by Amnesty International, ‘Evidence Points to Israel’s Continued Use of Starvation to Inflict Genocide Against Palestinians’, accuses Israel of deliberately weaponizing hunger. Amnesty International Secretary-General Agnes Callamard stated, “While the eyes of the world were diverted to the recent hostilities between Israel and Iran, Israel’s genocide has continued unabated in Gaza, including through the infliction of conditions of life that have created a deadly mix of hunger and disease, pushing the population past breaking point.”
Thousands of Palestinians are either killed or injured during the process of collecting aid. “This devastating daily loss of life as desperate Palestinians try to collect aid is the consequence of their deliberate targeting by Israeli forces and the foreseeable consequence of irresponsible and lethal methods of distribution,” said Agnes Callamard.
The devastation is staggering–over 90 per cent of Gaza’s 2.2 million residents have been forced from their homes. Whole neighbourhoods are flattened. Schools, hospitals, and mosques lie in ruins, deliberately targeted or caught in relentless bombardment.
Destruction of Education –‘Scholasticide’
The human cost is not limited to lives lost; it extends to the erasure of a future. On June 20, 2025, the United Nations reported that more than 90 per cent of Gaza’s educational facilities have been obliterated. This systematic targeting of learning institutions has been defined by the United Nations Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) as SCHOLASTICIDE—the destruction of education through the killing, detention or intimidation of teachers, students, and staff, coupled with the annihilation of infrastructure.
As per OHCHR’s report in April, “more than 5,479 students, 261 teachers and 95 university professors have been killed in Gaza, and over 7,819 students and 756 teachers have been injured—with numbers growing each day”. This is not collateral damage; it is the deliberate dismantling of Palestinian knowledge, culture, and self-determination. An OHCHR press release says, “The persistent, callous attacks on educational infrastructure in Gaza have a devastating long-term impact on the fundamental rights of people to learn and freely express themselves, depriving yet another generation of Palestinians of their future.”
Collapse of Medical Care
In Gaza, healthcare is barely functional. Hospitals and ambulances have been attacked, and humanitarian aid convoys are blocked from entry. In its May 2025 press release, the OHCHR held Israel responsible for committing “grave crimes that could amount to genocide” and stressed that the world is watching “the destruction of life in Gaza in real-time” yet doing nothing.
Dr. Susan Maarouf, a nutrition expert working at the Patient Friend Benevolent Society hospital in Gaza City, described the dire situation in June 2024: “Back then, Gaza City and the North Gaza governorate were hit by malnutrition [as a result of the tight blockade]. But this year… the situation began to drastically get worse again in April. Since then, out of approximately 200-250 children we have screened daily for malnutrition, nearly 15 per cent showed signs associated with severe or moderate malnutrition… In our situation… any recommendation you give… sometimes you feel like you are rubbing salt into these parents’ wounds.”
Even the most basic needs for newborns are unmet. Amnesty International warns that shortages of infant formula milk are putting countless babies—especially those with lactose intolerance or other allergies—at serious risk. One doctor in Gaza said, “There is a milk crisis in Gaza overall. Also, we notice that new mothers, because they themselves are not eating properly or because of the panic, trauma and anxiety, are unable to breastfeed. So, to secure baby formula at all is a struggle. But if your child has allergies, it’s almost impossible to find special formula in any of Gaza’s hospitals for infants—the failure to secure special baby formula can be a death sentence.”
Starvation as a Weapon
The most chilling feature of Israeli policy is the use of starvation as an instrument of collective punishment. According to Defence for Children International–Palestine, at least 145 children have already died from malnutrition while 60,000 more show signs of severe undernourishment.
The Gaza Health Ministry said 47 people had died from malnutrition in just the last 24 hours. As per Turkish state-run news agency Anadolu, five Palestinians were killed and over 26 others injured by Israeli army fire while trying to get humanitarian aid in the last 24 hours. It took the total number of Palestinians killed while seeking aid to 2,484 with over 18,117 others wounded since May 27.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) revealed that 852 trucks for UN and international humanitarian organisations, the majority of which carry food supplies, remain stuck in Al-Arish in Egypt, yet to receive a permit from the Israeli authorities to enter Gaza.
These are not random shortages; they are the result of deliberate obstruction. Across Israel and around the globe, protests have erupted labelling this starvation policy as genocide. History has seen such tactics before—where food is withheld to erase an entire population. Under international law, this is both a war crime and a crime against humanity.
Secretary-General of Amnesty International said, “As the occupying power, Israel has a legal obligation to ensure Palestinians in Gaza have access to food, medicine and other supplies essential for their survival. Instead, it has brazenly defied binding orders issued by the International Court of Justice in January, March and May 2024, to allow the unimpeded flow of aid to Gaza. Israel has continued to restrict the entry of aid and impose its suffocating cruel blockade and even a full siege lasting nearly a hundred days.”
Integrated Food Security Phase Classification—the global standardised tool for analysing and classifying the severity of food insecurity—stated that famine was confirmed in northern Gaza in mid-August, and is projected to expand to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis by the end of September.
A generation at risk
The humanitarian catastrophe extends into terrifying public health statistics. The Palestinian Ministry of Health reveals that the under-five mortality rate for 2024 in Gaza was recorded at 32.7 deaths per 1,000 live births, representing a sharp increase compared to the 13.6 rate reported in 2022.
Maternal mortality has also more than doubled from an estimated 19 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2022 to 43 deaths per 100,000 in 2024. Nearly 64,800 Palestinians have been killed since the escalation began, a toll that continues to climb.
Herzi Halevi, a former IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) Chief of Staff stated in a community meeting in southern Israel earlier this week that more than 10 per cent of Gaza’s 2.2 million population had been killed or injured—“more than 200,000 people”. These numbers are not mere data—they represent shattered families, communities erased and a society pushed to the brink of collapse.
“Israeli forces are not only deliberately starving Palestinian civilians, but they are now gunning them down almost every day,” said Belkis Wille, associate crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch.
International justice & impunity
On November 21, 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity. However, these warrants remain largely symbolic; enforcement is paralysed by geopolitical protection and strategic alliances.
As a result, the Israeli leadership presses forward with its campaign, secure in its impunity and backed by military superiority. As Agnes Callamard rightly pointed out, “Not only has the international community failed to stop this genocide, but it has also allowed Israel to constantly reinvent new ways to destroy Palestinian lives in Gaza and trample on their human dignity.”
The Gaza crisis is not an isolated tragedy; it is the visible outcome of a political and ideological project, one that mirrors other settler-colonial endeavours. The deliberate destruction of infrastructure, targeted starvation and mass displacement reveal a strategy designed to dismantle an entire society.
Gaza’s agony is not unique; it shares a striking resemblance to the suffering in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK). In both cases, ethno-nationalist governments driven by exclusionary ideologies have deployed overwhelming military force, demographic engineering and collective punishment to crush resistance. The blueprint of brutality is eerily the same!
