Algeria Strongly Condemns the Crime of Using Starvation Against Palestinians

Algeria strongly condemned the policies and practices of the Zionist entity against the Palestinian people, including the use of starvation as a weapon against the civilians in the Gaza Strip as part of the war of extermination it is waging in this part of the occupied Palestinian territories, a statement issued Saturday by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the National Community Abroad, and African Affairs said.

The statement read: “In a perilous precedent, the first of its kind in the history of the Palestinian cause and the entire Middle East, the United Nations officially declared a state of famine in the Gaza Strip yesterday (Friday).”

The same source explained that “what is most reprehensible and deplorable is that this state of complete famine is not the result of compelling circumstances, but rather is a political choice and the product of planning and ploting by the Israeli occupation.” It noted that “the famine that has been declared is not at all alien to the displacement project, not to the project to reoccupy Gaza, nor what has become known as the ‘Greater Israel’ project.”

Accordingly, the statement continued, “Algeria strongly condemns these policies and practices imposed on the Palestinian people in the context of the ongoing war of extermination in Gaza and calls on the international community, particularly the UN Security Council, to assume its responsibilities in the required collective action, nullify the Greater Israel project, and preserve the foundations of the two-state solution as the basis for any just, lasting, and final settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

Algeria, as a member of the Security Council, also affirms its “commitment to continuing its diplomatic efforts to support the Palestinian people and push towards ending this unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, as well as working to accelerate the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital,” the same source added.

The United Nations affirmed on Friday, August 22, that “famine has been confirmed in Gaza Governorate by the world’s top authority on food security and will spread further within the Strip unless fighting stops and much more aid is allowed in”.

“This is irrefutable testimony… It is a famine, the Gaza famine,” UN relief chief Tom Fletcher told reporters in Geneva just as the report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, a 21-agency partnership which includes UN entities and non-governmental organisations, was released”, it added.

The UN explained that “more than half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic hunger conditions, while more than a million more are in a food emergency phase. This man-made catastrophic famine could have been prevented by a steady flow of humanitarian aid into the enclave, Mr. Fletcher pointed out.”

“Yet food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel,” he said. “It is a famine within a few 100 meters of food in a fertile land.”

The UN’s top aid official underscored that the famine in Gaza is “caused by cruelty, justified by revenge, enabled by indifference and sustained by complicity”. The situation “must spur the world to more urgent action, must shame the world to do better,” he said.

Mr. Fletcher joined a chorus of voices reacting to the IPC report, including that of UN chief António Guterres, who in a statement on Friday called for urgent measures in response to “a man-made disaster”, including “an immediate ceasefire, the immediate release of all hostages and full, unfettered humanitarian access”.