NERMEEN SHAIKH: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Nermeen Shaikh.
Israel is being accused of using starvation as a weapon of war in
Gaza, as Israeli forces continue to severely restrict the delivery of
humanitarian aid, food and medical supplies to millions inside the
besieged territory after four months of indiscriminate bombardment and
mass displacement. U.N. human rights experts warn Gaza’s 2.3 million
population is facing severe levels of hunger, with the risk of famine
increasing daily.
For more, we’re joined by Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University and author of Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine. His piece for The Guardian is headlined “Unless Israel changes course, it could be legally culpable for mass starvation.”
Alex de Waal, welcome to Democracy Now! Lay out the argument you have in your Guardian piece.
ALEX DE WAAL:
So, my argument is essentially that while it may be possible to bomb a
hospital by accident, it is not possible to create a famine by accident,
and that for some months now, and particularly in mid-December, when
the famine review committee, which is sort of the highest level of
humanitarian assessment in the world, an independent, impartial,
professional and extremely discrete body of experts, said that Gaza is
heading towards famine, it is already in catastrophe — and these are
very technical terms. And unless there is an end to active hostilities
by the Israeli authorities and army and a full spectrum of relief
operations, it is inevitable that sometime in the coming months — and
they said beginning likely in early February — under the technical
definitions, Gaza would be in famine.
So that is fair warning. And the actions undertaken by the government
of Israel — and the war crime of starvation is defined thus: “using
starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of
objects indispensable to their survival, including wilfully impeding
relief supplies.” So the main element of the crime is destroying food,
foodstuffs, hospitals, medical care, sanitation, shelter, etc. Unless
that is all stopped, Gaza will be in famine.
NERMEEN SHAIKH:
And, Alex, if you could clarify? We just have a minute. You say that
Palestinian children in Gaza will die in the thousands, even if the
barriers to aid are lifted today. Explain.
ALEX DE WAAL:
So, a humanitarian crisis is like a speeding freight train. Even if the
driver puts on the brakes as hard as he possibly can, it will take many
miles for that train to come to a stop. So, the levels of malnutrition
that we are now seeing, the exposure to infectious disease through
polluted water, through overcrowding and through lack of shelter, will
mean that this humanitarian crisis continues. So, this is not something
that can be stopped overnight.
And the fact that even after these warnings were issued, even after
the International Court of Justice issued its provisional measures
instructing Israel that it had to undertake these key actions, that this
has continued, and the United States has not stopped it, makes them
culpable for the crimes of starvation.
NERMEEN SHAIKH:
So, Alex de Waal, if you could speak — you’ve worked, obviously, on the
question of famine and of mass starvation in many other contexts. If
you could put what’s happening in Gaza in the broader context of what
you’ve witnessed, from Sudan to Ethiopia, Afghanistan and Yemen?
ALEX DE WAAL:
I think that the key element, key fact about what is happening in Gaza,
has been happening for the last few months, is an exceptionally
accelerated and concentrated and clearly deliberate, intentional
reduction of a population to a state of outright starvation, of a nature
that we have not seen in modern times. There is no parallel to this
since World War II.
So, if we compare what is happening in Gaza to the other great
famines in recent times, in Somalia, in Ethiopia, in Yemen, in the
Nigerian Civil War in the 1960s, in China in the late 1950s, many of
those were much bigger in terms of the numbers of people who died,
because they impacted much larger populations. They were also much
slower. They took many, many months or several years, usually, to
unfold. They all have in common the fact that it is political or
military decision that not only sets in motion starvation, but allows it
to proceed without being halted. But this is an extraordinarily
ruthless and concentrated example, as I said, without real parallel
since World War II.
NERMEEN SHAIKH:
And could you explain why its intention doesn’t really come into this,
why it doesn’t matter whether Israel is deliberately using starvation as
a weapon of war, or if it’s a byproduct of its assault on Gaza? Why is
that not relevant?
ALEX DE WAAL:
So, let’s look at the case that was presented to the International
Court of Justice by South Africa recently. And that used the Genocide
Convention. And the key provision in the Genocide Convention is Article II,
which is deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life
calculated to bring about its physical destruction, in whole or in part.
Now, the court is going to take a long time to rule as to whether this
is genocide or not, because the key element that it has to determine is
genocidal intent. Now, there are a lot of senior government ministers in
Israel who have made blatantly genocidal statements, but that does not,
in itself, prove that there is genocidal intent in the way that the
Israeli Defense Forces are conducting their operations.
But the actual facts on the ground are that conditions of life that
will bring about the physical destruction of a significant part of the
population of Gaza, those are there. Those are actually existing,
regardless of what is the intention. And there are different types of
intention. So, the war crime of starvation, which is — the focus is on
depriving civilians of objects indispensable to survival, which isn’t
just food. It’s anything that is indispensable to survival. That can be
deliberately intended, in the sense that the criminal, the perpetrator,
wants to starve, or obliquely intended, in that the perpetrator is
conducting the actions for another reason, like crushing a military
adversary, but it has that outcome.
Now, the key thing about starvation is that it doesn’t stop just
because you stop doing your action. And it continues, when you are being
— and if you continue doing it even though you were warned of the
outcome, you are also responsible. And that is the key here. The key is
that Israel is knowingly creating these conditions, because it has been
warned, and warned repeatedly, and yet it has continued. And so that
makes it culpable. And regardless of the intent, the crime is being
committed. And those who are arming Israel, supporting Israel and
undermining the relief capacity, which is particularly the UNRWA, are complicit in this.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, another point that you make in your Guardian piece
— I’ll just read a short sentence. You write, “Never before Gaza have
today’s humanitarian professionals seen such a high proportion of the
population descend so rapidly towards catastrophe,” you say. And this as
residents in the north, northern Gaza, are reportedly eating grass and
drinking polluted water. UNRWA, the U.N.
agency for Palestinian refugees, said today a food convoy expected to
move into northern Gaza was targeted by Israeli forces. So, Alex, if you
could talk about that, and, of course, this coming as there are
— you’re warning of famine, these are the conditions on the ground, and
donor countries are considering defunding UNRWA?
ALEX DE WAAL:
So, if we go back to what the Famine Relief Committee came up with back
in December — and this was based on the data that they gathered
primarily during the humanitarian truce at the end of November. They
have a five-point scale of food stress, going from phase one, which is
normal; phase two, which is stressed; phase three, crisis; phase four,
emergency — and in emergency, this is when children start to die in
significant numbers; and phase five, which is catastrophe or famine,
depending on exactly how the different metrics and indicators work out.
And the current, as of early December, was 17% in catastrophe, phase
five, 42% in emergency, phase four. The projected, which was for this
week, early February, was 26% in catastrophe or famine, and 53% in
emergency, so three-quarters of the population in emergency or
catastrophe or famine. And that is quite extraordinary, given that right
at the beginning of the crisis, the population was under stress, but
then the rates of severe acute malnutrition were actually pretty low.
The number of children who suffered from wasting because of deprivation
of food was about 1% or thereabouts. So, just to reiterate, this train
of catastrophe is moving extremely fast.
Now, there is a principle that was adopted by international
humanitarians and by the United States government some 12, 13 years ago
in Somalia, which is broadly called “no regrets” programming, which is
that if you see a catastrophe unfolding, you must set aside the strict
criteria in two regards. First of all, how closely and clearly do you
actually know how bad it is? You should operate on a worst-case
assumption. It’s better to waste some — quote, “waste” some resources by
feeding people who may not actually be starving to death. And secondly,
you also need to work with authorities, or you have to have a
humanitarian carveout that means you can work alongside or with
authorities that you don’t fully trust, knowing that some of your aid
may be diverted. In the case of Somalia in 2011, it was the terrorist
group al-Shabab, because unless you worked with them, there was going to
be a famine in the areas they controlled. And so, it was agreed we will
have a humanitarian carveout.
Now, this “no regrets” principle is being inverted today in Gaza, in that the slightest suspicion that some members of UNRWA,
which is the only capable relief organization able to deliver
assistance at scale, the slightest suspicion that some of them, small
number, are associated with Hamas and its actions, is leading to a
potential major cutoff in funding. And that makes international donors
doubly complicit in what is going on.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: You also wrote in your piece
— just to put what’s happening in a comparative frame, you wrote,
quote, “Many wars are starvation crime scenes. In Sudan and South Sudan,
it’s widespread looting by marauding militia. In Ethiopia’s Tigray
[region], farms, factories, schools and hospitals were vandalized and
burned, far in excess of any military logic. In Yemen, most of the
country was put under starvation blockade. In Syria, the regime besieged
cities, demanding they 'surrender or starve.' The level of destruction
of hospitals, water systems and housing in Gaza, as well as restrictions
[of] trade, employment and aid, surpasses any of these cases,” you
write in your Guardian piece. So, if you could elaborate on that?
ALEX DE WAAL:
So, what the Israeli Defense Forces are doing is not the full range of
starvation crimes. For example, we don’t see them pillaging. We don’t
see them stealing en masse. But what we do see is this relentless
destruction of essential infrastructure. And this goes far beyond any
proportionality. The laws of war are very clear, that if you are
conducting a war in an area that is inhabited by civilians, that you
have to have the — the damage to civilians, the deaths of civilians must
be proportionate to your military objectives. And even the Israeli
former Chief Justice Aharon Barak actually has said in a judgment,
actually relating in this case to torture, that a law-abiding state or a
democracy must — and I quote — “must sometimes fight with one hand tied
behind its back,” because the fact that there are combatants embedded
within a civilian population does not mean that that civilian population
loses its civilian character, its protected character, according to the
war. And what we are seeing in the case of Gaza is that the Israelis
are essentially treating the entire population as a combatant
population. That is de facto what we are seeing. And we did not see that with this intensity in any of these other cases.
NERMEEN SHAIKH:
And, Alex, if you could put this all in the context of ongoing U.S.
support for Israel, and also U.K. support, but principally U.S. support?
To the extent that Israel is guilty of creating the conditions for
famine and already inducing mass starvation in Gaza, is the U.S. also
complicit?
ALEX DE WAAL:
I think morally, clearly, it’s complicit. And it could be legally
liable in two ways. One, first of all, would be if the International
Court of Justice does indeed find that Israel was — is responsible for
genocide. And then the United States could be complicit in that crime
in, certainly, the element of inflicting on the group conditions of life
calculated to bring about its physical destruction. But even if the ICJ
doesn’t find that, or it takes a long time to find that, the
International Criminal Court prosecutor is also looking into war crimes
and crimes against humanity, which have essentially the same provision,
without the genocidal intent. And I think this would not be difficult to
prove, that the same outcome is being — is occurring with just the
intent to destroy these things, without the direct intent to cause
starvation or to cause genocide, so starvation being the predictable
outcome.
Now, if the prosecutor of the ICC were to
begin to issue arrest warrants for Israeli officers or commanders or
politicians, then the U.S. might find itself, by implication, complicit
on those grounds, too. So the U.S. lawyers need to be very, very
attentive to that as they give the administration its advice on whether
it should continue in its current policy, which, as your correspondents
have been saying, appears to be unconditional support for Israel.
NERMEEN SHAIKH:
We reported in our headlines that Belgium summoned the Israeli
ambassador after Israel bombed Belgium’s development agency in northern
Gaza. The bombing reportedly occurred on Wednesday after Belgium
announced it would not pause funding for UNRWA,
the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees. So, Alex de Waal, could you
respond to this? And if a direct link is established, though I’m not
sure how that would be, what does it mean that Israel is carrying out
this kind of retaliation against a humanitarian agency?
ALEX DE WAAL:
That would be just an extraordinary violation, not only of
international humanitarian law, but of international criminal law. And
if it could be proven, it would mean that those responsible could and
should end up in court on trial for those crimes.
NERMEEN SHAIKH:
Alex de Waal, now we want to turn to — you know, you’ve done a lot of
work in Sudan. So, if you could talk about — you recently wrote a piece for Chatham House on the situation now in Sudan. If you could elaborate on that?
ALEX DE WAAL:
Well, let me actually take a little step back, because what we’re
seeing in the Horn of Africa and in Yemen is something that we have not —
in my almost 40-year career of studying food crises in these countries,
we have not seen before, which is four major simultaneous food
emergencies unfolding at the same time. So we have — in Sudan, we have
about half the population. It’s a country of about 45 million people,
and about half the population is in need of emergency assistance because
of the war. In Ethiopia, we are seeing, in the northern part of the
country, a rapid descent into famine conditions — are not yet there, but
they are heading there — due to a combination of the effects of the war
in northern Ethiopia, which unfolded over two years, came to an end a
year ago, combined with drought. In Somalia, the continuing insecurity
and conflict combined with severe drought, and now, in recent months,
severe floods related to climate change. And in Yemen, the impact of the
protracted war and siege, which just came to an end last year, which is
now being exacerbated by the hostilities between the U.S. and the
Houthis, and the designation of the Houthis as a terrorist organization.
So we’re seeing four massive food crises unfolding in parallel, at a
time when two other things are happening. One is that the price of of
food aid has shot up because of the Black Sea crisis and also the Red
Sea crisis. It’s just the cost of shipping, the cost of insurance,
getting food to these countries has gone up. And also, the budget of the
major agencies, such as the World Food Programme, has been massively
squeezed. And that’s primarily because there is a standard allocation
from the U.S., the major donor, but then what we — what the World Food
Programme and what USAID need is a supplemental allocation, and the supplementary budget is held up in Congress.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Thank you so much, Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University and the author of Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine. His new piece for The Guardian
is titled “Unless Israel changes course, it could be legally culpable
for mass starvation.” To see Part 1 of our conversation with Alex de
Waal, go to democracynow.org. This is Democracy Now! I’m Nermeen Shaikh. Thanks so much for joining us.
