GAZA, (Palestine Foundation Information Center) A team of United Nations experts has accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon to exterminate the Palestinian population in Gaza, warning that the enclave’s health system has completely collapsed under the ongoing siege and bombardment.
In a statement on Thursday, the experts said Israel’s displacement orders and attacks, such as the deadly strike on the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, target the last remaining pillars of humanitarian response in Gaza.
They stressed that more than 500,000 people, a quarter of Gaza’s population, face starvation, while the rest endure emergency levels of hunger. All 320,000 children under five are at risk of severe malnutrition.
The experts condemned what they described as Israel’s “illegal restrictions on humanitarian aid” that have created living conditions amounting to “the physical destruction of the Palestinian people in Gaza,” a crime they said is punishable under international law as genocide.
They highlighted reports that more than 1,000 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire while waiting for food aid, alongside over 59,000 killed and 140,000 wounded since the start of the genocide.
They also warned that forced displacement orders have crowded survivors into just 12% of Gaza’s territory, and denounced Israeli proposals to relocate residents to a so-called “humanitarian city” near Egypt as a step toward permanent expulsion.
The statement accused some states of enabling the genocide by shielding Israel from accountability and continuing to supply it with arms and economic support.
Meanwhile, Gaza’s medical sector is on the brink of total collapse. Mohammed Abu Salmiya, director general of Al-Shifa Medical Complex, said on Thursday that hospitals are unable to treat the sick and wounded due to shortages of medicine, equipment, and food.
He reported a surge in disease caused by waste buildup and contaminated water, adding that hundreds of dialysis patients and newborns are dying because lifesaving supplies are blocked.
The UN experts warned that without urgent international action, “never again” risks becoming a hollow phrase, marking not the prevention of genocide, but the end of Palestinian life in Gaza.
