Palestinian minister accuses Israel of starving Gazans

The Palestinian foreign minister yesterday accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war against around 1mn Gazans.
The UN World Food Programme says half of Gaza’s population of 2.3mn is starving as the expansion of Israel’s military assault into the southern part of the Gaza Strip, in response to October’s storming by Hamas fighters, has cut people off from food, medicine and fuel.
“As we speak, at least 1mn Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, half of them children, are starving, not because of a natural disaster or because of lack of generous assistance waiting at the border,” Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki told a UN event to mark the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. “No, they are starving because of Israel’s deliberate use of starvation as a weapon of war against the people it occupied”.
In response, an Israeli official told Reuters in Jerusalem: “This is, of course, obscene...(a) blood-libellous, delusional level of allegations.” Israel was encouraging increased shipments of food into Gaza from Egypt, which also borders the Palestinian enclave, the official said, blaming lags on a “bottle neck” at that border. A government official said the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza from Israel was reopened for inspections yesterday, and the government had ramped up aid inspection capacity.
In Geneva, al-Maliki said: “We are living through this dystopian reality that excludes Palestinians from the basic, most basic rights afforded to all human beings”.
He described this as an “utter international failure” to protect Palestinians.