Human Rights Watch

• The numbers involved are just as despairing.
• The world’s major authority on food insecurity, the IPC Famine Review Committee, estimates that 90% of Gazans – some 2.08 million people – are facing acute food insecurity.
• Indeed, of the people facing imminent starvation in the world today, an estimated 95% are in Gaza.
• As an expert in Palestinian public health, I fear the situation may not have hit its nadir.

Putting Palestinians ‘on a diet’

• But food insecurity in Gaza and the mechanisms that enable it did not start with Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 attack.
• Multiple factors contributed to this food insecurity, not least the blockade of Gaza imposed by Israel and enabled by Egypt since 2007.
• Basic foodstuff was allowed, but because of delays at the border, it can spoil before it enters Gaza.

• By placing restrictions on food imports, Israel seems to be trying to put pressure on Hamas by making life difficult for the people in Gaza.
• In the words of one Israeli government adviser in 2006, “The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.” To enable this, the Israeli government commissioned a 2008 study to work out exactly how many calories Palestinians would need to avoid malnutrition.
• The blockade also increased food insecurity by preventing meaningful development of an economy in Gaza.

Hampering self-sufficency

• Gaza’s fishermen are regularly shot at by Israeli gunboats if they venture farther in the Mediterranean Sea than Israel permits.
• Because the fish closer to the shore are smaller and less plentiful, the average income of a fisherman in Gaza has more than halved since 2017.
• By early December 2023, an estimated 22% of agricultural land had been destroyed, along with factories, farms, and water and sanitation facilities.

Starvation as weapon of war

• The use of starvation is strictly forbidden under the Geneva Conventions, a set of statutes that govern the laws of warfare.
• Human Rights Watch has already accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war, and as such it accuses the Israeli government of a war crime.
• Yet untangling what Israel’s intentions may be – whether it is using starvation as a weapon of war, to force mass displacement, or if, as it claims, it is simply a byproduct of war – does little for the people on the ground in Gaza.

Yara M. Asi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• The WHO says that, as of Jan. 5, there have been more than 600 attacks on health-care facilities, with 26 out of 36 hospitals in Gaza severely damaged and 79 ambulances targeted.
• Over 300 health-care workers have been killed and over 200 have been detained by Israeli forces.
• This leaves patients with chronic life-threatening diseases, such as cancer, heart failure and end-stage kidney disease, with severely limited access to the ongoing medical care they need to survive.

Patients unable to access care for chronic conditions

• As nephrologists and internal medicine physicians, we are gravely concerned about patients in Gaza with chronic diseases who are unable to access care.
• There are more than 1,100 dialysis patients, including 38 children, in Gaza.
• Without adequate dialysis, fluid and toxins accumulate and patients typically die within days to weeks from respiratory failure or cardiac arrest.
• But in a health-care system under assault, patients are fortunate to receive any dialysis at all.

Patients needing life-saving treatment

• She then attempted to access dialysis at Al-Awda and Kamal Adwan hospitals, but both facilities had insufficient capacity to treat him.
• This is a tremendous challenge for dialysis patients who are faced with the uncertainty of when, where or if they will access their life-saving therapy.
• Anssam, age 12, was displaced from Jabaliya in northern Gaza to seek treatment in Deir El Balah in central Gaza.
• She had gone 15 days without dialysis and had to leave with her mother to receive life-saving medical treatment.

Loss of medical personnel

• Beyond the destruction of health-care facilities and a critical shortage of supplies, the loss of medical personnel may have the most devastating and longest-lasting impact on the health-care system in Gaza.
• He had hopes to expand dialysis care in Gaza and build a nephrology educational training program.
• His loss resonated far beyond his family, patients and colleagues in Gaza.
• We join the UN, the WHO, MSF and the British Medical Association, along with millions around the world, who call for an immediate ceasefire and unimpeded humanitarian aid.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• LOS ANGELES, Dec. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) is releasing its annual Top Ten Global Worst Anti-Semitic Incidents .
• This year's list is dominated by the horrific Hamas pogrom of October 7th, by Hamas terrorists who brutally murdered 1,200 Israelis - men, women, and children - including infants.
• Since then, the tsunami of anti-Semitic hate has surged to an all-time high across Europe and North America.
• Topping the list this year is the murderous, genocide-seeking terrorist organization Hamas, who on October 7th, perpetrated the worst atrocity against the Jewish people in one day, since the Nazi Holocaust.

• Slater Slater Schulman LLP represents the largest number of survivors of prison abuse committed in New York State.
• "Our clients endured absolute horrors while incarcerated in New York State – each story is worse than the next.
• The ASA's extended window for filing lawsuits constituted a significant milestone in addressing the profound abuse endured by these survivors.
• NOTE: Individuals seeking to be linked to resources for sexual assault survivors can call 800.656.HOPE (4673) to be connected with a trained staff member from a sexual assault service provider in your area.