Since October 2023, the Israeli Occupation has deliberately weaponized starvation in the Gaza Strip as a method of warfare, in grave violation of international humanitarian law (IHL). The destruction of farms, fisheries, bakeries, markets, water infrastructure, and food distribution systems coupled with forced displacement and siege constitutes not only a war crime but also meets the legal threshold for genocide, as defined in the 1948 Genocide Convention (Art. 2c).
Amidst this engineered famine, the Israeli Occupation created the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) in May 2025, falsely promoting it as a neutral aid mechanism. In reality, GHF is an extension of the occupation, serving as a tool of control, fragmentation, and dehumanization. For Palestinians, GHF institutionalizes dependency, militarizes aid, and dismantles sovereignty over land, food, and life itself.
“Gaza Humanitarian Foundation”: An Infrastructure of Death
The GHF has created what local officials call “death traps.” The Gaza Government Media Office reports that, as of July 13,805 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, 5,252 have been injured and 42 have gone missing at or near GHF-run distribution points. Survivors describe how the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF), aided by private U.S security contractors, gun down unarmed civilians seeking food staples.
These are not isolated incidents. A June 2025 investigation by Haaretz published testimonies by Israeli soldiers that they had received orders to open fire on civilians near GHF locations. This is an outright breach of Article 8 of the Rome Statute, constituting a war crime, and customary IHL Rule 55, which requires parties to the conflict to permit and ensure humanitarian relief.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has condemned this militarized distribution structures, warning on July 12 that the situation is “beyond catastrophic” and that “people are being forced to choose between risking their lives to access aid or watching their children starve.” The current model is a violation of the right to life, dignity, and security as stipulated under the provisions of IHL and IHRL.
Legal Framing: Starvation as a War Crime and Genocide
Article 54 of Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions explicitly forbids the use of starvation as a tactic in war. Further, Articles 7 and 8 of the Rome Statute state that the denial of food or medicine calculated to bring about the destruction of a part of a population is a crime against humanity and a war crime. The intentional destruction of the Gaza Strip’s food system alongside siege and denial of aid fits within the rubric of genocide as defined by Article 2(c) of the Genocide Convention, which outlines one manifestation of genocide as “deliberately inflicting on [a] group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”
International Complicity and Legal Responsibility
GHF’s militarized structure is supported and funded by the United States, including through $30 million or more in direct funding. That is material support to an aid system in breach of international law. According to the International Law Commission (ILC) Draft Articles on State Responsibility, in particular Articles 16 and 41, states become legally responsible when they contribute to others’ commission of an internationally wrongful act.
States that are supporters or sponsors of the GHF may be breaching Common Article 1 of the Geneva Conventions, which obliges all states to “respect and ensure respect” for IHL in all circumstances.
Dismantling of Legitimate Aid Channels
The Israeli creation of GHF occurred in tandem with its deliberate campaign to dismantle the existing aid architecture. Most notably, it has targeted the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which for decades is the primary source of vital services for Palestinian refugees. The defunding and delegitimization of UNRWA constitutes a direct assault on the right to humanitarian assistance and Rule 56 of customary IHL to respect and protect humanitarian relief personnel and operations.
The Israeli Occupation continues to impose severe restrictions on the movement of humanitarian aid, personnel, and fuel, and consistently delay or outright deny aid convoys. Convoys are consistently denied access to Gaza’s north and center, where the famine is most acute. Aid agencies are confronted by unpredictable shutdowns, arbitrary “red lines”, and direct threat of lethal force all determined by military fiat not humanitarian considerations.
Palestinian and International Civil Society Reject GHF
More than 160 Palestinian and international NGOs, including UAWC, have signed on to a joint statement categorically rejecting the GHF as a framework that negates Palestinian agency and replaces local responses with a militarized dependency. UAWC further stresses that any relief system that denies Palestinians their right to choose how, when, and where they receive support is an extension of aggression, not a channel for recovery.
Food Sovereignty: A Path of Resistance, Dignity, and Rebuilding
Food sovereignty is a legal and political imperative. For Palestinians, food is not merely sustenance. It is land, culture, autonomy, and a form of resistance. UAWC emphasizes that the only viable and just path forward must prioritize rebuilding local food systems, reviving agroecological knowledge, protecting farmland and fishing rights, and ensuring access to seeds, water, and infrastructure.
Despite 18 years of siege, Gaza’s farmers, herders, fishers, and food producers sustained life. They do not need handouts; they need freedom. The Israeli genocide has deliberately targeted this self-sufficiency, reducing Palestinians to recipients of conditional and militarized aid. That model must end.
Humanitarian aid must never be a substitute for justice. The real recovery must begin by dismantling the structures of occupation and famine and restoring Palestinian control over land and production.
GHF Must Be Dismantled
It isn’t that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation doesn’t live up to humanitarian standards, but rather that it tramples all over them. It is an institution of famine, life-threatening, and sovereignty-erasing. Foreign actors should jettison the fiction of neutral aid and start backing rights-based, decolonial responses embedded in Palestinian leadership and food sovereignty.
There will be no food sovereignty under occupation. There is no dignity in dependency. Assistance needs to be in service of self-determination not overseeing oppression.
UAWC affirms that to feed ourselves is to resist, to farm our land is to reclaim our future, and our struggle for food sovereignty is inseparable from our struggle for liberation.
