Gaza is a manufactured apocalypse

There are images and stories from Gaza over the last year that will surely haunt us for years to come—the kinds of pictures we see in history books that recount the worst crimes of the past. From the appalling story of six-year-old Hind Rajab, who was killed after being shot at 335 times while trapped in a car with her family, to the video of a decapitated Palestinian child after Israel’s strike on tents in Rafah, it is hard to say which of these many horrors has impacted you the most.

But there is one image that, in many ways, encapsulates the truly apocalyptic situation in Gaza today. The video of a 19-year-old Palestinian student, Shaban al-Dalu, being burned alive after an Israeli strike hit a hospital courtyard in central Gaza, where refugees slept in their tents. Images and videos from that shocking scene sparked global outcry yet again over Israel’s war on Gaza.

The video vividly captures the last moments of Shaban’s young life, being cut short in the most gruesome way possible as witnesses helplessly yell with anguish. The story quickly spread online, eliciting strong reactions from commentators stunned by seeing someone burn to death. The image of fire and death caused by Israel’s indiscriminate attacks that continue across the Gaza Strip conjured the visions of hellfire often associated with the Apocalypse.

However, Gaza’s apocalypse is not biblical or symbolic; it is a manufactured catastrophe executed against a civilian population under the guise of Israel’s “right to self-defence.” While Israel stands accused of genocide in the world’s highest court, the Western world—led by the United States—has continued to deny the reality that most of the world can clearly see. Even some of the experts who were hesitant a year ago to call Israel’s actions a genocide have now changed their minds in the wake of what we have witnessed.

Throughout this year—from Israel’s deliberate use of hunger as a weapon of war to its unprecedented destruction of Gaza and its most recent siege on northern Gaza—the Biden administration has maintained its unwavering support. Without this support, Israel’s decimation of Gaza and expanding regional onslaught would not be possible.

The Siege of Northern Gaza

On 24 October, Secretary of State Blinken was asked about Israel’s so-called General’s Plan in northern Gaza at a news conference in Doha with Qatar’s prime minister. Secretary Blinken responded, “With regard to the so-called General’s Plan in the north, let me just say again, first, the United States fully and fundamentally rejects it. Second, as I told you the other day, the government of Israel says that it is not the policy of Israel and also rejects the plan. We reject any effort to create a siege, to starve people.”

Blinken made this statement the day after his visit to Israel when Israeli media reported that Prime Minister Netanyahu “sidestepped” requests to state publicly that Israel’s plan is not to lay siege to the north of Gaza. Additionally, Blinken’s statement ignores the reality on the ground that has been reported for weeks and reports in September, which stated that Netanyahu was considering a plan to forcibly remove all civilians from northern Gaza.

In early October, as Israel issued “evacuation” orders in northern Gaza, including hospitals, the United Nations raised the alarm over Israel’s actions, stating that Palestinians in the north had nowhere to go, southern Gaza was already overwhelmed, and that desperately needed humanitarian aid was not getting through Israeli checkpoints to the north.

The combination of siege and lack of essential aid getting to the north fits the parameters of a retired Israeli general’s “surrender or starve” plan, which essentially calls for pressure on the civilian population to force Hamas to surrender—an act of collective punishment that constitutes war crimes. There are an estimated 400,000 Palestinians in the north of Gaza, many of which are unable to leave and have nowhere safe to go for shelter. Moreover, there have been reports of people actually trying to flee being shot at by Israeli forces.

Read more: Israel's war on Gaza enters its "darkest moment" in the north

Israel’s siege of northern Gaza has prompted multiple UN agencies and officials to express their fear of how impactful the devastation may be, including an alarming warning from the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Joyce Msuya, stating, “The entire population of north Gaza is at risk of dying.”

For his part, UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk released a video message stating, “Today, one of the darkest moments of the Gaza conflict is unfolding in the north of the Strip. As we speak, the Israeli military is subjecting an entire population to bombing, siege and starvation...We are facing what could amount to atrocity crimes, including potentially extending to crimes against humanity.”

The dangers that officials keep warning about are illustrated by Israel’s attacks on the Kamal Adwan Hospital, which is one of only three hospitals in northern Gaza still operating at limited capacity. After laying siege to the hospital, Israeli forces stormed the facilities, causing significant destruction, killing patients, detaining medical staff, and leaving only one doctor for the entire hospital. The World Health Organisation expressed concern after losing contact with hospital personnel and reiterated their call to protect hospitals, patients and medical workers, as the globally-recognised NGO Doctors Without Borders echoed those sentiments.

While the conditions in northern Gaza have continued to deteriorate, the few Palestinian journalists reporting on the ground have been accused of being “terrorists” by the Israeli military, which posted pictures of six Al Jazeera journalists publicly, raising concerns about a preemptive justification to target them. Al Jazeera strongly rejected this accusation, and Israel’s actions caused more public uproar, including a post from the Committee to Protect Journalists that stated, “Israel has repeatedly made similar unproven claims without producing credible evidence.”

If the situation itself was not difficult enough, many in the north fear they will never be allowed to return to their homes if they do leave, much like the Nakba of 1948. In fact, the Gaza Strip’s largest refugee camp, Jabalia Camp in the north, was established in 1948. Such harrowing scenes of Palestinians forcibly expelled from their homes, marching in a trail, with Palestinian men separated from their families and forced to strip have already been seen, which recall similar images of Palestinians expelled from their homes in the Nakba.

The idea that Israel is intentionally carrying out a campaign of ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza is further substantiated by the fact that Israeli officials, including National Security Minister Ben Gvir, held an event near Gaza, along with settlers, labelled the “Preparing to Settle Gaza” conference on 20-21 October. Speakers called for the reestablishment of Jewish settlements in Gaza, and there were workshops on how to build them.

Days later, Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for Israel to extend its sovereignty across Gaza and the West Bank, which would mean the annexation of internationally-recognised Palestinian territory. Palestinian fears of never being able to return were corroborated on 5 November when Israeli media reported an Israeli army announcement stating, “This time, there is no intention to allow the residents of the northern Gaza Strip to return to their homes.”

For his part, UN Secretary-General António Guterres has pleaded for the protection of civilians under international humanitarian law, stating, “People suffering under the ongoing Israeli siege in North Gaza are rapidly exhausting all available means for their survival.” However, the dire situation in northern Gaza is emblematic of Israel’s total disregard for civilian life and international law.

Starvation as a weapon of war

While the siege on northern Gaza has rightfully captured the attention of many commentators and activists over the last month, Israel’s starvation of Gaza’s civilian population has been going on for over a year and is perhaps the most glaring evidence of its disdain for humanitarian norms and a deliberate plan to harm Palestinians. Unlike its bombing campaign, which has indiscriminately killed civilians, Israel attempts to justify this under the banner “targeting Hamas". However, Israeli officials cannot make a similar case for blocking desperately needed humanitarian aid.

Yet, what we have seen from the first days of Israel’s assault on Gaza is a policy of systematic starvation. Immediately following the October 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas, Israel's then-defence minister, Yoav Gallant, ordered a “complete siege” of Gaza, stating, “There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly.

Given the open declaration of collective punishment, international pressure forced Israel to allow some aid into Gaza. From there began a public relations campaign by the US and Israel to appear as though civilians were not being deliberately starved while continuing to do so in practice.

In fact, the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, Jan Egeland, told CNN on 23 October 2024, more than a year into Israel’s war on Gaza: “We’ve heard now promises since the end of October of last year that we would get humanitarian aid in, there would be protection of civilians, and it hasn’t happened...There hasn’t been one week since October last year that we got in enough aid trucks. So, even that has been instrumentalised in this warfare on Hamas, which is basically taking down the whole population with them. It is beyond belief what has happened.”

Already in December of 2023, Human Rights Watch released its findings that Israel was deliberately denying access to food and water, “The Israeli government is using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare in the Gaza Strip, which is a war crime.”

HRW cited not only the fact that Israel was blocking the delivery of aid into Gaza but also that its destruction of agricultural land, bakeries and other facilities needed for survival was preventing the ability of Palestinians in Gaza to feed themselves. This fact was often ignored by US and Israeli officials who used the number of aid trucks as a rebuttal to accusations that Israel was blocking aid. In reality, many more trucks were needed to meet the demands, which have consistently fallen short.

In January 2024, the International Court of Justice concluded South Africa’s genocide case against Israel had merit and did not dismiss the case as Israel had requested. The court outlined a number of provisions for Israel, including the need to ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza. A month later, the Flour Massacre, in which Israeli forces killed over 100 starving Palestinians waiting to collect flour, ignited global backlash and renewed the urgency of the situation.

Instead of actually pressuring Israel to let more aid into Gaza, President Biden announced on 7 March 2024 that the US would build a pier to deliver aid. Despite being warned that the pier would be inefficient and undercut more effective routes, the Biden administration pushed the project through, which delivered more headlines than food to Gaza. By the end of March, the ICJ unanimously ordered Israel to take every measure to ensure food was getting to Palestinians in Gaza as hunger continued to spread.

Just days after the ICJ order, an Israeli strike on clearly marked World Central Kitchen aid trucks killed seven of its workers, including a US citizen, sparking yet another round of global backlash and a rare response from President Biden that still did not condemn Israel. The WCK took a harsher tone, calling it “an attack on humanitarian organisations showing up in the most dire of situations where food is being used as a weapon of war. This is unforgivable.”

In the wake of this attack, and to quell public outrage at Israel’s actions and US inactions, President Biden reportedly threatened to condition support for Israel’s war on Gaza if the Israeli government did not take tangible steps to protect aid workers and civilians, as well as increase the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza. Such severe language had yet to be seen from the Biden administration despite the wide-scale death and destruction over the previous six months. As has been the case for over a year, the administration’s position was more bark than bite.

On 8 April, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told a room full of reporters that there had been “an increasing sense of frustration inside the United States government” and, if Israel’s policy did not change, the Biden administration would change US policy. Though the Biden administration noted some improvement, a month later, on 8 May, Miller stated that “when it comes to the level of humanitarian assistance, the results as they are today are just unacceptable, there is no other way to put it.”

Miller then emphasised the need for Israel to sustain the levels of aid going into Gaza. By June, when aid groups were already saying the conditions in the north of Gaza had worsened again, the State Department continued to offer empty words and no policy change.

In fact, reports that surfaced in September showed that two US government agencies had concluded by April that Israel was deliberately blocking food and medicine into Gaza and submitted their assessments to Secretary of State Blinken. Though Blinken knew that Israel was blocking aid, he ignored the assessments from within the State Department and testified to Congress on 10 May that Israel was not prohibiting the delivery of aid in order to keep US weapons flowing. Blinken’s testimony to Congress even prompted the resignation of State Department official Stacy Gilbert, who joined a growing list of resignations over the administration’s position on Gaza.

The steady decline of aid into Gaza has become so evident, with a growing chorus of voices calling for action, that it prompted a letter in mid-October from Secretary of State Blinken and Secretary of Defence Austin to Israeli officials demanding that Israel take steps to improve the humanitarian situation on the ground. However, the Biden administration provided Israel with an arbitrary 30-day deadline, allowing the starvation and siege to continue unabated.

Not only has Israel failed to implement US recommendations with little time remaining of the 30 days, but the Israeli Knesset voted to ban the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, just two weeks after the US letter was sent. The Israeli government took this action in spite of warnings from the US that such a move “would devastate the Gaza humanitarian response at this critical moment” and “could have implications under relevant US law and policy.”

Read more: Israel ramps up its 'war' on the United Nations