Famine in Gaza
Conngresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman released the following statement in response to reports of widespread famine in the Gaza Strip.
"What we are witnessing in Gaza is a humanitarian disaster beyond measure. We have arrived at this point - a population pushed to the brink of starvation - through the use of military force, funded by US tax dollars.
"The Israeli government, under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has for months, obstructed aid, targeted food distribution sites, and treated starvation as a weapon of war. Aid agencies have warned for over a year that a famine was coming, and now it’s here. Pregnant women, children, and journalists are dying. Palestinians are suffering tragic and preventable deaths.
"The death of any child from hunger is an indictment of the systems and leaders that allowed it to happen, but the aid distribution system in Gaza is failing by design. Aid trucks are stuck at the border while people in Gaza are dying without food, clean water, medicine, or fuel. Aid groups report that over 90,000 women and children are suffering from severe malnutrition, with a third of the population going days without food. The Israeli military has reduced the number of humanitarian access sites from 400 to just four. Meanwhile, since May, over 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces while trying to reach aid. These sites are military-controlled, dangerous, and inadequate.
"The use of starvation as a weapon is a war crime under International law, but Prime Minister Netanyahu has proven he has no regard for human life or the law, and so has no issue deploying such barbaric tactics in the continued ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. The results of his evil campaign are undeniable and heartbreaking.
"Just outside of their borders, there are pallets of food and medicine that have not been distributed to thousands of innocent children whose only crime is being born in Gaza and living through the genocide of their people. It is difficult to put into words what we are watching unfold in the Gaza Strip, and it disturbs me deeply that so many of my colleagues are able to remain ignorant of - and even defend - these crimes against humanity.
"There must be an immediate end to the blockade, the full restoration of humanitarian access, and the enforcement of a ceasefire. Every day without these steps costs lives. No government should be allowed to use food as a tool of war, and no government, especially ours, should reserve the privilege to look away"