Despite US cover for Israel’s darkest crimes, the family of nations still has the means and duty to act.
www.aljazeera.com
How to stop Israel from starving Gaza
Washington shields Israel as it commits the darkest of crimes, but the family of nations still has the means and duty to act.
By
Jeffrey Sachs and
Sybil Fares
Published On 4 Sep 20254 Sep 2025
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A person holds a pot on their head as Palestinians wait to receive food from a charity kitchen after the global hunger monitor, Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), said Gaza City and surrounding areas are officially suffering from famine that will likely spread, in Gaza City, August 28, 2025 [Mahmoud Issa/Reuters]
Israel, with the complicity of the United States, is committing genocide in Gaza through the mass starvation of the population, as well as direct mass murders and the physical destruction of Gaza’s infrastructure. Israel does the dirty work. The US government funds it and provides diplomatic cover through its veto power at the United Nations. Palantir, through Lavender, provides the artificial intelligence for efficient mass murder. Microsoft, through Azure cloud services, and Google and Amazon, through the Nimbus initiative, supply core tech infrastructure for the Israeli army.
This marks 21st-century war crimes as an Israel-US public-private partnership. Israel’s mass starvation of the people of Gaza has been confirmed by the UN, Amnesty International, Red Cross, Save the Children, and many others. The Norwegian Refugee Council, along with 100 organisations, has been calling for an end to Israel’s weaponisation of food relief. This is the first time that mass starvation has been officially confirmed in the Middle East.
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The scale of the starvation is staggering. Israel is systematically depriving more than two million people of food. More than half a million Palestinians face catastrophic hunger, and at least 132,000 children aged below five years are at risk of death from acute malnutrition. The scale of the horror is thoroughly documented by Haaretz in a recent article entitled “Starvation is Everywhere”. Those who are able to somehow access food distribution sites are routinely fired upon by the Israeli army.
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As a former US ambassador to Israel recently explained, the intention to starve the population has been present from the start. Israel’s Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu recently declared, “There is no nation that feeds its enemies.” Minister Bezalel Smotrich also recently said, “Whoever doesn’t evacuate, don’t let them. No water, no electricity; they can die of hunger or surrender. This is what we want.”
Yet, despite these glaring declarations of genocide, US representatives at the UN repeatedly deny the facts and cover for Israel’s war crimes. The US alone vetoed Palestine’s admission to the UN in 2024. It now denies visas to Palestinian leaders to visit the UN in September, yet another violation of international law.
The US has used its power, especially its veto in the UN Security Council (UNSC), to abet Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians and to block even the most basic humanitarian responses. The world is aghast but seems paralysed before the Israel-US murder machine. Yet the world can act, even in the face of US intransigence. The US will stand naked and alone in its criminal complicity with Israel.
Let’s be clear. The overwhelming voice of humanity is on the side of the people of Palestine. Last December, 172 countries, with more than 90 percent of the world population, voted to support Palestine’s right to self-determination. Israel and the US were essentially isolated in their opposition. Similar overwhelming majorities are repeatedly expressed on behalf of Palestine and against the actions of Israel.
Israel’s thuggish government now counts solely on US support, but even that may not be there for long. Despite Trump’s intransigence and the US government’s attempts to stifle pro-Palestinian voices, 58 percent of Americans want the UN to recognise the State of Palestine, compared with only 33 percent who do not. Moreover, 60 percent of Americans oppose Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Here are practical steps that the world can take.
First, Turkiye has set the
correct course by ending all economic, trade, shipping, and air links with Israel. Israel is currently a rogue state, and Turkiye is right to treat it as such until Israeli-created mass starvation ends, and a State of Palestine is admitted to the UN as the 194th member, with the borders of June 4, 1967. Other states should immediately follow Turkiye’s lead.
Second, all UN member states that have not yet done so should recognise the State of Palestine. So far, 147 countries recognise Palestine. Dozens more should do so at the UN summit on Palestine on September 22, even over the vociferous objections of the US.
Third, the Arab signatories to the Abraham Accords – Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates – should suspend their diplomatic relations with Israel until the Gaza siege ends and the State of Palestine is admitted to the UN.
Fourth, the UN General Assembly (UNGA), by a vote of two-thirds present and voting, should suspend Israel from the UNGA until it lifts its murderous siege on Gaza, based on the precedent of suspending South Africa during its apartheid regime. The US has no veto in the UNGA.
Fifth, UN member states should stop the export of all technology services that support the war until the siege of Gaza ends and Palestine’s membership in the UN is adopted by the UNSC. Consumer companies such as Amazon and Microsoft that persist in aiding the Israeli military in the context of a genocide should face the wrath of consumers worldwide.
Sixth, the UNGA should dispatch a UN Protection Force to Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Typically, it would be the UNSC that mandates a protection force, but in this case, the US will block the council with its veto. There is another way.
Under the “Uniting for Peace” mechanism, when the UNSC is deadlocked, the authority to act passes to the UNGA. After a UNSC session and the almost inevitable US veto, the issue would be brought before the UNGA in a resumed 10th emergency special session on the Israel-Palestine conflict. There, the UNGA can, by a two-thirds majority not subject to US veto, authorise a protection force in response to an urgent request from the State of Palestine. There is a precedent: in 1956, the UNGA authorised the UN Emergency Force (UNEF) to enter Egypt and protect it from the ongoing invasion by Israel, France, and the United Kingdom.
At the invitation of Palestine, the protection force would enter Gaza to secure emergency humanitarian aid for the starving population. If Israel were to attack the UN protection force, the force would be authorised to defend itself and the Palestinians in Gaza. Whether Israel and the US would dare to fight a UNGA-mandated force protecting the starving Palestinians remains to be seen.
Israel has crossed the clear line into the darkest crimes – starving civilians to death and shooting them as they line up, emaciated, for food. There is no further line to cross, nor time to lose. The family of nations is being tested and summoned to action as it has not been in decades.
www.jpost.com
