{"id":294610,"date":"2025-05-05T12:00:50","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T11:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=294610"},"modified":"2025-05-12T01:13:35","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T00:13:35","slug":"as-israel-openly-declares-starvation-as-a-weapon-media-still-hesitate-to-blame-it-for-famine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2025\/05\/as-israel-openly-declares-starvation-as-a-weapon-media-still-hesitate-to-blame-it-for-famine\/","title":{"rendered":"As Israel Openly Declares Starvation as a Weapon, Media Still Hesitate to Blame It for Famine By Bel\u00e9n Fern\u00e1ndez"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\"Israeli<\/p>\n

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir tweeted<\/a> that Republican officials at Mar-a-Lago \u201cexpressed support for my very clear position on how to act in Gaza and that the food and aid depots should be bombed in order to create military and political pressure to bring our hostages home safely.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced<\/a> on March 2 that \u201cIsrael has decided to stop letting goods and supplies into Gaza,\u201d where the ongoing Israeli genocide, with the loyal backing of the United States, has officially killed<\/a> more than 51,000 Palestinians since October 2023. The announcement regarding the total halt of humanitarian aid amounted to yet another explicit declaration of the starvation policy that Israel is pursuing in the Gaza Strip, a territory that\u2014thanks in large part to 17 consecutive years of Israeli blockade\u2014has long been largely dependent on such aid for survival.<\/p>\n

Of course, this was not the first time that senior Israeli officials had advertised their reliance on the war crime of forced starvation in the current genocidal assault on Gaza. On October 9, 2023, two days after the most recent launch of hostilities, then\u2013Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ordered<\/a> a \u201ccomplete siege\u201d of the Gaza Strip: \u201cThere will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed.\u201d Two days after that, Foreign Minister Israel Katz boasted<\/a> of cutting off \u201cwater, electricity and fuel\u201d to the territory.<\/p>\n

And just this month, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir proclaimed<\/a> that there was \u201cno reason for a gram of food or aid to enter Gaza.\u201d Following an April 22 dinner<\/a> held in his honor in Florida at US President Donald Trump\u2019s Mar-a-Lago resort, Ben-Gvir reported<\/a>that US Republicans had<\/p>\n

expressed support for my very clear position on how to act in Gaza and that the food and aid depots should be bombed in order to create military and political pressure to bring our hostages home safely.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Never mind that the hostages would have been brought home safely as scheduled had Israel chosen to comply with the terms of the ceasefire agreement with Hamas that was implemented in January, rather than definitively annihilating the agreement on March 18. It is no doubt illustrative of Israel\u2019s modus operandi that the March 2 decision to block the entry of all food and other items necessary for human existence took place in the middle of an ostensible ceasefire.<\/p>\n

\u2018Starved, bombed, strangled\u2019<\/b><\/h3>\n
\n

\"CNN:<\/p>\n

A year ago, USAID administrator Samantha Power (CNN<\/strong>, 4\/11\/24<\/a>) said it was \u201clikely that parts of Gaza, and particularly northern Gaza, are already experiencing famine.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

While Ben-Gvir\u2019s most recent comments have thus far eluded commentary in the US corporate media, the roundabout media approach to the whole starvation theme has been illuminating in its own right. It has not, obviously, been possible to avoid reporting on the subject altogether, as the United Nations and other organizations have pretty much been warning from the get-go of Israel\u2019s actions causing widespread famine in Gaza.<\/p>\n

In December 2023, for example, just two months after the onset of Israel\u2019s blood-drenched campaign, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification initiative, or IPC scale, determined<\/a> that \u201cover 90% of the population in the Gaza Strip (about 2.08 million people) was estimated to face high levels of acute food insecurity, classified in IPC Phase 3 or above (Crisis or worse).\u201d The assessment went on: \u201cAmong these, over 40% of the population (939,000 people) were in Emergency (IPC Phase 4) and over 15% (378,000 people) were in Catastrophe (IPC Phase 5).\u201d<\/p>\n

A full year ago, in April 2024, even Samantha Power<\/a>\u2014then the administrator of the US Agency for International Development\u2014conceded that it was \u201ccredible<\/a>\u201d that famine was already well underway in parts of the Gaza Strip. And the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs now warns<\/a> that Gaza is \u201clikely facing the worst humanitarian crisis in the 18 months since the escalation of hostilities in October 2023\u201d\u2014its population being \u201cstarved, bombed, strangled\u201d and subjected to \u201cdeprivation by design.\u201d<\/p>\n

Disappearance of agency<\/b><\/h3>\n
\n

\"NYT:<\/p>\n

Typically, even when outlets report sympathetically on hunger in Gaza, they fail to state clearly that it is the deliberate result of Israeli policy, as in this New York Times<\/strong> headline (6\/25\/24<\/a>).<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

None of these details have escaped the pages and websites of corporate media outlets, although the media\u2019s frequent reliance on ambiguous wordiness tends to distract readers from what is actually going on\u2014and who is responsible for it. Take, for instance,\u00a0 the New York Times<\/b> headline \u201cGaza Famine Warning Spurs Calls to Remove Restrictions on Food Shipments\u201d (6\/25\/24<\/a>), or the CBS<\/b> video \u201cHunger Spreads Virtually Everywhere in Gaza Amid Israel\/Hamas War\u201d (12\/5\/24<\/a>). Even news outlets that intermittently undertake to spotlight the human plight of, inter alia, individual parents in Gaza losing their children to starvation remain susceptible to long-winded efforts to disperse blame. (As of April of last year, Save the Children confirmed<\/a> that 27 children in northern Gaza had already died of starvation and disease.)<\/p>\n

In an era in which news consumption often consists of skimming headlines, the phrasing of article titles is of utmost import. And yet many headlines manage to entirely excise the role of Israel in Gaza\u2019s \u201chunger crisis\u201d\u2014as in CNN<\/b>\u2019s report (2\/24<\/a>): \u201c\u2018We Are Dying Slowly:\u2019 Palestinians Are Eating Grass and Drinking Polluted Water as Famine Looms Across Gaza.\u201d Or take the Reuters<\/b> headline (3\/24\/24<\/a>): \u201cGaza\u2019s Catastrophic Food Shortage Means Mass Death Is Imminent, Monitor Says.\u201d Or this one from ABC News<\/b> (11\/15\/24<\/a>): \u201cFamine \u2018Occurring or Imminent\u2019 in Parts of Northern Gaza, Experts Warn UN Security Council.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that these headlines are devoid of sympathy for Palestinian suffering. The issue, rather, is the dilution\u2014and even disappearance\u2014of agency, such that the \u201ccatastrophic food shortage\u201d is rendered as transpiring in a sort of vacuum and thereby letting the criminals perpetrating it off the hook. Imagine if a Hamas rocket from Gaza killed an infant in Israel and the media reported the event as follows: \u201cIsraeli Baby Perishes as Rocket Completes Airborne Trajectory.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018No shortage of aid\u2019<\/b><\/h3>\n
\n

\"NBC:<\/p>\n

NBC<\/strong>\u2018s headline (4\/17\/24<\/a>) gives Israel\u2019s denial of a problem equal weight with aid workers\u2019 description of Gazans\u2019 desperate situation.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Then there is the matter of the media\u2019s incurable habit of ceding Israeli officials a platform to spout demonstrable lies, as in the April 17 NBC News<\/b> headline<\/a> \u201cAid Groups Describe Dire Conditions in Gaza as Israel Says There Is No Shortage of Aid.\u201d The fact that Israel is permitted to make such claims is particularly perplexing, given Israeli officials\u2019 own announcements that no aid whatsoever may enter the territory, while the \u201cdire conditions\u201d are made abundantly clear in the text of the article itself: \u201cThe\u00a0Global Nutrition Cluster, a coalition of humanitarian groups, has warned that in March alone, 3,696 children were newly admitted for care for acute malnutrition\u201d in Gaza.<\/p>\n

Among numerous other damning statistics conveyed in the dispatch, we learn that all Gaza bakeries supported by the UN World Food Programme closed down on March 31, \u201cafter wheat flour ran out.\u201d Meanwhile, the WFP calculated that Israel\u2019s closure of border crossings into Gaza caused prices of basic goods \u201cto soar between 150% and 700% compared with prewar levels, and by 29% to as much as 1,400% above prices during the ceasefire.\u201d<\/p>\n

Against such a backdrop, it\u2019s fairly ludicrous to allow Israeli officials to \u201cmaintain there is \u2018no shortage\u2019 of aid in Gaza and accuse Hamas of withholding supplies.\u201d If the press provides Israel with space to spout whatever nonsense it wants\u2014reality be damned\u2014where is the line ultimately drawn? If Israel decides Hamas is using wheat flour to build rockets, will that also be reported with a straight face?<\/p>\n

Lest anyone think that thwarting the entry of food into the Gaza Strip is a new thing, recall that Israel\u2019s blockade of Gaza long predated the present war\u2014although the details of said blockade are generally glossed over in the media in favor of the myth that Israel unilaterally \u201cwithdrew<\/a>\u201d from the territory in 2005. In 2010, the BBC<\/b> (6\/21\/10) listed<\/a> some basic foodstuffs\u2014pardon, potential \u201cdual-use items\u201d\u2014that Israel had at different times in recent history blocked from entering Gaza, including pasta, coffee, tea, nuts and chocolate. In 2006, just a year after the so-called \u201cwithdrawal,\u201d Israeli government adviser Dov Weissglas outlined<\/a> the logic behind Israel\u2019s restriction of food imports into Gaza: \u201cThe idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fast forward almost two decades, and it\u2019s safe to say that the \u201cidea\u201d has evolved; this is a genocide, after all\u2014even if the corporate media refuse to say the word<\/a>\u2014and starvation is part and parcel of that. But on account of Israel\u2019s extra-special relationship with the United States, US media have institutionalized the practice of beating around the bush when it comes to documenting Israeli crimes. This is how we end up with the aforementioned long-winded headlines instead of, say, the far more straightforward \u201cIsrael is starving Gaza,\u201d a Google<\/b>search of which terms produces not a single corporate media dispatch, but does lead to a January 2024 report<\/a> by that very name, courtesy of none other than the Israeli human rights organization B\u2019Tselem.<\/p>\n

\u2018Starving as negotiation tactic\u2019<\/b><\/h3>\n
\n

\"NYT:<\/p>\n

Megan Stack (New York Times<\/strong>, 3\/13\/25<\/a>): \u201cLately it feels as if the human beings in Gaza are increasingly lost from our understanding.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

That said, there have been a few surprises. The New York Times <\/b>(3\/13\/25<\/a>), for example, took a short break from its longstanding tradition of unabashed apologetics<\/a> for Israeli atrocities in allowing the following sentence to appear in a March opinion article by Megan Stack: \u201cIsraeli officials are essentially starving Gaza as a negotiation tactic.\u201d In the very least, this was a vast improvement, in terms of syntactic clarity and assignation of blame, over previous descriptions of Israeli behavior immortalized on the pages of the US newspaper of record\u2014like that time the Israeli military slaughtered four kids playing by the sea in Gaza, and the Times<\/b> editors (7\/16\/14<\/a>) went with the headline \u201cBoys Drawn to Gaza Beach, and Into Center of Mideast Strife.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the end, Israel\u2019s starvation of the Gaza Strip is multifaceted. It\u2019s not just about physically blocking the entry of food into the besieged enclave. It\u2019s also about Israel\u2019s near-total decimation of Gaza\u2019s healthcare system: the bombardment of hospitals, the targeting of ambulances, the massacres of medical personnel (FAIR.org<\/b>, 4\/11\/25<\/a>). It\u2019s about Israeli military attacks<\/a> on humanitarian aid convoys and workers, including the April 2024 massacre<\/a> of seven international employees of the food organization World Central Kitchen.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about Israel razing agricultural areas<\/a>, wiping out food production<\/a>, devastating the fishing industry and depleting livestock. It\u2019s about Israel bombing water infrastructure in Gaza. And it\u2019s about Israeli troops slaughtering at least 112<\/a> desperate Palestinians queuing for flour on February 29, 2024 (FAIR.org<\/b>, 3\/22\/24<\/a>)\u2014which was at least a quicker way of killing starving people than waiting for them to starve.<\/p>\n

In his 2017 London Review of Books<\/b> essay (6\/15\/17<\/a>) on the use of famine as a weapon of war, Alex de Waal referenced the \u201cphysical debilitation of groups as a technique of genocide,\u201d noting that \u201cforced starvation was one of the instruments of the Holocaust.\u201d It\u2019s worth reflecting on the essay\u2019s opening paragraph:<\/p>\n

In its primary use, the verb \u201cto starve\u201d is transitive: It\u2019s something people do to one another, like torture or murder. Mass starvation as a consequence of the weather has very nearly disappeared: Today\u2019s famines are all caused by political decisions, yet journalists still use the phrase \u201cman-made famine\u201d as if such events were unusual.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As for the current case of the Gaza Strip, US establishment journalists appear to be doing their best to avoid the transitive nature of the verb in question\u2014or any subject-verb-object construction that might too overtly expose Israeli savagery. And by treating famine in Gaza as a subject unto itself, rather than a \u201ctechnique of genocide,\u201d to borrow de Waal\u2019s words, the media assist in obscuring the bigger picture about this very man-made famine\u2014which is that Israel is not just starving Gaza. Israel is exterminating Gaza.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

\"\"<\/a>Bel\u00e9n Fern\u00e1ndez<\/strong> is the author of The Dari\u00e9n Gap:<\/a>A Reporter\u2019s Journey through the Deadly Crossroads of the Americas<\/i> and Inside Siglo XXI:<\/a> Locked Up in Mexico\u2019s Largest Immigration Center<\/i>, among other titles. She is an opinion columnist at Al Jazeera<\/a><\/b>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Source:<\/strong> \u00a0FAIR\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir tweeted that Republican officials at Mar-a-Lago \u201cexpressed support for my very clear position on how to act in Gaza and that the food and aid depots should be bombed in order to create military and political pressure to bring our hostages home safely.\u201d Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":294646,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[1029,1126,487,1050,88,651,767,91,427,109,985,880,124,95,70],"class_list":["post-294610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-palestine-israel-gaza-genocide","tag-hamas","tag-hegemony","tag-human-rights","tag-imperialism","tag-israel","tag-justice","tag-middle-east","tag-nato","tag-palestine","tag-politics","tag-social-justice","tag-state-terrorism","tag-united-nations","tag-us-military","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294610"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":294647,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294610\/revisions\/294647"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}