Confronted with facts and figures from Israel's starvation campaign in Gaza, the Trump administration refuses to urge Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to end his nearly five-month blockade of supplies to Gaza. The most commanding of the reports on the situation, "The Architecture of Genocidal Starvation in Gaza, March-August 2025," was issued this week by Forensic Architecture, which is based at Goldsmiths, the University of London, and the World Peace Foundation, which is affiliated with the Fletcher School of Global Affairs. It is difficult to find institutions with a more prestigious pedigree in politics. Their investigation of the Gaza situation shows, without a doubt, that Israel has created a deadly famine in northern Gaza and it is spreading southwards.

 

The report reveals how Israel has "systematically dismantled the long-standing and effective civilian model of aid distribution through aid organisations and the local community." Israel has replaced it with a "military model of aid distribution - the Gaza Humanitarian Foundations (GHF) which "carries out starvation through rationing." The model causes "forced displacement and re-concentration of the Palestinian people" who find reaching the four briefly functioning GHF aid hubs "dangerous and deadly." The model undermines civil order and dismantles the social fabric of the Palestinian community, the report says. It also refutes Israeli accusations that Hamas has been stealing the by the aid being delivered at 400 locations by the UN/civilian charities system. The report lists incidents to show how Israel has sidelined the UN model.

 

This report was issued after last week's declaration of famine in Gaza by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which is regarded as the most influential organisation dealing with nutritional crises. The IPC's assessment was made on the basis of the presence of extreme hunger, acute malnutrition, and deaths from starvation. "The time for debate and hesitation has passed, starvation is present and is rapidly spreading,” the report stated.

 

United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) director Catherine Russell said last weekend, "To me, it’s kind of obscene that we are having these conversations arguing about whether the methodology [the delivery system] works or not. We know children are dying, right? I am tired of a discussion about..are we giving the right information or not?” Since UNICEF has aid workers on the ground in Gaza and is acting on behalf of the strip’s population, the agency’s dire warnings must be believed.

 

Israel has strongly denied the starvation accusation although even Donald Trump admitted at the end of last month there is "real starvation in Gaza" and said, "You have a lot pf starving people" in Gaza. But he has all too clearly done nothing to change Israel's actions which have precipitated famine. Instead, he has said Israel's war on Gaza - and presumably its blockade - could end in two or three weeks. How many Gazans will be killed, injured, displaced and starved during this time? Deaths in Gaza have risen to nearly 63.000 with 158.000 injured,11,000 missing, and 90 per cent of the population displaced.

 

Nevertheless, Netanyahu remains committed to his "forever war" and is determined to empty Gaza City, drive its residents southwards, and destroy the city, a job that Israeli experts argue could take a year.

 

Trump's limp comments should be compared with the call by Irish President Michael D. Higgins for the formation of a United Nations force to guarantee the delivery of aid to Gaza. He urged the activation of Chapter VII of the UN Charter which allows the secretary-general, with the approval of enough General Assembly members, to form a force to secure aid access, even if the US uses its veto to block Security Council action on this issue. Higgins described Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza as “a tragic period” in the world’s history.

 

Meanwhile, states enabling Israel to commit war crimes and genocide by providing political, financial, or military support should face state responsibility for complicity in genocide or failing to prevent genocide. The chief culprit among these enablers is, of course, the US – which provides Israel with 69 per cent of its imported arms as well as $3.8 billion annually in military aid and continues to give Israel uncritical political backing. Early this month Germany belatedly suspended arms deliveries to Israel which could be used in the Gaza war. Unfortunately, the major global actor and middle-ranking world powers are not made to account for their policies unlike former world power, Russia which has been sanctioned and isolated for its war in Ukraine.