THE UN says there is a famine in Gaza.

Yes, the killing fields of Gaza are seeing another weapon — starvation — being deployed, because the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF), under orders from the Netanyahu government, are not content with killing 60,000 people — a figure which its own database says included, in the first phase of the war, 83 per cent unarmed civilians. If the first phase set a trend that continues, then some 50,000 innocent civilians have been killed so far.

The blockade clamped by IOF, also known as IDF (Israeli Defence Forces), has triggered a famine. Malnutrition and death stalk the Strip as the UN says that one in five households, some half a million Gaza Palestinians, are facing an acute food and nutrition deficit, and one in three children or more are acutely malnourished. Similarly, two per 10,000 people are dying daily due to malnutrition and disease. Soul-destroying numbers, you’d agree.

The web-based 972 Magazine, run by Israeli and Palestinian journalists, has published a story based on the Israeli ministry of intelligence’s database, which says that of those killed by Israel in the first phase, only 17pc are identified as Hamas militants or other combatants. The rest were unarmed civilians. This when Israel was claiming a high ‘kill ratio’ of 50pc to 60pc of militants. The report also says of those killed, 60pc were women and children.

It seems that starvation and killings are not enough to achieve the goal of total and expeditious

© Dawn