US-based rights group accuses Israel of ‘starvation’ tactic in Gaza

Gaza Conflict: Human Rights Watch (HRW), a U.S.-based organisation, charged on Monday that Israel was attempting to starve Palestinians in Gaza amid its conflict with Hamas. Israel responded that the accusation was baseless and originated from a “antisemitic” organisation.

The latest American official to travel to Israel was Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, who went there to urge the ally to move away from high-intensity combat despite the continuous bombardment and siege of the highly populated enclave.

Despite international pressure to defuse the situation in Gaza, where buildings are in ruins, starvation is widespread, and health officials estimate that almost 19,000 Palestinians have died, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised to continue until “absolute victory.”

Israel is determined to eliminate Hamas members responsible for an Oct. 7 massacre that claimed 1,200 lives and kidnapped 240 captives, despite growing international outrage over the number of civilians in Gaza who have nowhere to flee.

According to HRW’s study, Israeli forces are purposefully obstructing the supply of fuel, water, and food, destroying agricultural land, and depriving the 2.3 million residents of the coastal enclave—the majority of whom are now homeless—of necessities for survival.

After HRW’s “silent” response to the killings on October 7, Israel retaliated by labelling the organisation as “antisemitic and anti-Israeli” and claiming it had no moral right to comment.

Israel has repeatedly denied that it targets civilians while blaming Hamas for killing civilians by infiltrating residential areas. It claims to be working to protect innocent people from receiving supplies that could be diverted to thousands of Hamas fighters operating out of tunnels.

The health ministry of the Hamas-run enclave reported that ninety Palestinians perished in the most recent shelling on Sunday in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza. An attack on Al Shifa, the primary hospital in Gaza, was reported by Hamas Aqsa radio.

Twelve Palestinians were reported dead and scores injured in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, according to doctors, while an Israeli airstrike on a house in Rafah, in the south, claimed the lives of at least four individuals.

According to Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra, an Israeli tank shell struck the maternity building inside Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, killing a 13-year-old girl who had lost a leg in an earlier hit.

With the identities of four additional Israeli troops lost in combat in Gaza provided by the military, the total number of Israeli casualties in the Gaza Strip since the start of the ground incursion in late October is 126.

Locals reported shooting between Hamas terrorists and Israeli soldiers in a number of locations along the restricted Gaza Strip; the terrorists claimed to have carried out a slew of strikes.

(With agency inputs)