The UN said Tuesday that Israel’s severe restrictions on aid into war-ravaged Gaza coupled with its military offensive could amount to using starvation as a “weapon of war”, which would be a “war crime”.
United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk denounced the rampant hunger and looming famine in Gaza.
In a statement slammed by Israel, Turk said that “the situation of hunger, starvation and famine is a result of Israel’s extensive restrictions on the entry and distribution of humanitarian aid and commercial goods”.
“The extent of Israel’s continued restrictions on the entry of aid into Gaza, together with the manner in which it continues to conduct hostilities, may amount to the use of starvation as a method of war, which is a war crime.”

His spokesman, Jeremy Laurence, told reporters in Geneva that the final determination of whether “starvation is being used as a weapon of war” would be determined by a court. Efforts to hammer out a temporary truce in Gaza intensified Tuesday after months of war that have left parts of the devastated territory facing imminent famine.

A UN-backed assessment described the increasingly dire situation by noting that without a surge of aid famine would hit the 300,000 people in Gaza’s war-battered north by May.
Gaza’s 2.4 million people are trapped in the fighting, which again flared at the territory’s biggest hospital Al-Shifa as an Israeli raid stretched into Tuesday.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Tuesday that at least 31,819 people have been killed in the territory during more than five months of war between Israel and Palestinian militants.
The latest toll includes at least 93 deaths in 24 hours, a ministry statement said, adding that 73,934 people have been wounded in Gaza since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7.
But positive signals have been reported from negotiations for a new truce that would include an exchange of hostages for prisoners and increased aid deliveries.

US media outlet Axios said the opening session of talks in Doha was “positive”, citing what it called a source with direct knowledge of the negotiations. “Both parties came with some compromises and willingness to negotiate,” the source said, according to the report.

There have been no public announcements from Monday’s scheduled talks between Israel’s spy chief David Barnea and Egyptian and Qatari mediators.
The new truce push follows the latest proposal from Hamas for a six-week ceasefire, vastly more aid into Gaza and the initial release of about 42 hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
US President Joe Biden, a key backer of Israel, told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to send a team to Washington to discuss how to avoid an all-out assault in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.