A global rights group accused Israel on Monday of committing a war crime by starving people in the Gaza Strip who continued to face relentless attacks in the war with Hamas militants.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed no let-up in the bombardment and siege of the densely-populated coastal enclave, where buildings lie in ruins, hunger is rife, and health authorities say around 19,000 Palestinians have been killed.
Despite rising global pressure to protect civilians, who have nowhere to go, Israel is bent on eliminating the Hamas group behind the Oct. 7 rampage that killed 1,200 people and took 240 hostages, according to Israeli authorities.
U.S.-based Human Right Watch (HRW) said Israeli forces were deliberately blocking delivery of water, food and fuel, razing agricultural areas and depriving Gaza’s 2.3 million people of objects indispensable for their survival.
“The Israeli government is using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare in the occupied Gaza Strip,” it said in a report. “World leaders should be speaking out against this abhorrent war crime.”
There was no immediate response to the HRW report from Israel, which has denied targeting civilians and says it is trying to facilitate aid to innocents while choking off supplies to thousands of Hamas fighters operating from tunnels.
The HRW report came after Pope Francis accused Israel of “terrorism”, deploring the reported killing by the Israeli military of two Christian women in a church complex.
Israel has not responded to his comments.
The United Nations Security Council could vote on Monday on a proposal to demand that Israel and Hamas allow better aid access – via land, sea and air – with monitoring of deliveries.
Diplomats said the draft resolution hinges on final negotiations between the United States and the United Arab Emirates, which has drafted the text.
Increased violence also continued in the occupied West Bank, where four Palestinians were killed in an ongoing Israeli army raid on the Faraa refugee camp, the Palestinian health ministry said on Monday.