Famine in Gaza
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Famine in Gaza is the mass starvation of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip. The United Nations has declared that an actual famine is taking place there, with men, women, children, the elderly and the sick starving to death. The territory is not short of food: there is "plenty of food for everybody," and the famine exists because the Israeli government will not allow that food to reach the people who need it most.

John Kiriakou characterises the situation as "a war crime," "a crime against humanity" and "a form of genocide," and is explicit that the characterisation is not his own invention: "that's not John saying it. That's the United Nations saying it. That's the International Court of Justice saying it." He treats the conditions in the West Bank as a related and simultaneous problem rather than a separate one.

The failure of third countries

Kiriakou frames the central question as one of enforcement rather than knowledge: food is being kept out in plain sight, "but all we see is international hand ringing," and he asks whether countries other than Israel and the United States can force the crossings open. Interviewed on his programme, Roger Waters answered that other countries could act if they considered it part of their mandate, and said the gap between what Western democracies profess and what they do had been "a real awakening" for him.

Ethnic cleansing as the stated objective

Kiriakou argues that the declared Israeli war aim no longer explains the campaign. Israel says its goal is to destroy Hamas, but in his assessment Hamas "for all intents and purposes no longer exists, at least not as a fighting force", and even before October 7 it had no aircraft, tanks or artillery pieces. What remains, he says, "seems clear to me. It's ethnic cleansing, which is to push all Palestinians out of Gaza", "clearly, obviously illegal," a war crime and a crime against humanity, while "the self-described most civilized countries in the world are just standing by watching it happen" and the same process runs in the West Bank at the same time.

Why Egypt keeps the border shut

On the movement of Gazans out of the territory through third countries, Kiriakou's response is that this is exactly what the Egyptians have been warning against since the war began. Egypt's position, as he describes it, is that it loves its Palestinian brothers and wants to help, but that opening the border and letting Palestinians cross into Sinai would do nothing but abet a policy of ethnic cleansing, and so it cannot be done.

He also treats the willingness of other governments to name what is happening as a good in itself: without wanting Palestinians to suffer any more than they already have, he says it is good and important that these countries are finally standing up to the Israelis and saying no.

See also

- Hamas
- October 7 attack
- Roger Waters
- Israel-United States relations
- Benjamin Netanyahu
