Women wait to receive food at a distribution point in Gaza City. PHOTO COURTESY OF PALESTINE.UN.ORG

Esraa Halib wept that sunny Friday in July when she gave her baby Zainab a goodbye kiss before she was laid to rest. A worker at the morgue “had carefully removed her Mickey Mouse printed shirt, pulling it over her sunken, open eyes. He pulled up the hems of her pants to show her knobby knees. His thumb was wider than her ankle. He could count the bones of her chest.”

So did the Associated Press start its reporting on the 5-month-old infant, one of the 85 children who had died so far in the Gaza Strip after 21 months of war between Israel and the militant Palestinian group Hamas.

“The girl had weighed over 6.6 pounds when she was born,” her mother said. “When she died, she weighed less than 4.4 pounds.”

Baby Zainab did not suffer from any disease. Instead, she “had needed a special kind of formula that helps with babies allergic to cow’s milk. It was not available due to Israel’s tight control of aid.”

Halib told the AP, “With my daughter’s death, many will follow. Their names are on a list that no one looks at. They are just names and numbers. We are just numbers. Our children, whom we carried for nine month and then gave birth to, have become just numbers.”

But the lament of mothers such as Halib and another 84 children and families of 42 other Palestinians who have starved to death, according to Al Jazeera, citing the Gaza Health Ministry, is finally being heard.

Earlier this month, two top Israeli rights organizations accused Israel of committing genocide. B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHRI) stated “in these dark times it is especially important to call things by their name” while “calling on this crime to stop immediately.”

In an 88-page document, B’Tselem stated, “An examination of Israel’s policy in the Gaza Strip and its horrific outcomes, together with statements by senior Israeli politicians and military commanders about the goals of the attack, leads us to the unequivocal conclusion that Israel is taking coordinated action to destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip.”

PHRI, in its 65-page report, said it conducted a health-focused legal analysis which found that Israel had targeted Gaza’s healthcare infrastructure “in a manner that is both calculated and systematic.” According to PHRI, “The evidence shows a deliberate and systematic dismantling of Gaza’s health and life-sustaining systems – through targeted attacks on hospitals, obstruction of medical aid and evaluations, and the killing and detention of healthcare personnel.”

France’s President Emmanuel Macron said that he will recognize Palestine as a state in September; so far it has been an enclave existing under harsh conditions imposed by Israel that have led some critics to call it the world’s largest open-air prison. “The urgent thing today is that the war in Gaza stops and the civilian population is saved,” Macron wrote on social media.

Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he too will recognize Palestine as a state, telling his Cabinet that it is “the right time to move this position forward” unless Israel takes “substantive steps to end the crisis in Gaza and commit to a long-term process that will yield a two-state solution.” Starmer conditioned recognition on Hamas’ releasing all remaining hostages, giving up any role in the Gaza government and disarming.

Even President Donald Trump, whose administration uses accusations of antisemitism to expel foreign college students and professors and harass some top universities, finally acknowledged the dire situation in Gaza, stating, “That’s real starvation stuff, I see it, and you can’t fake that. We have to get kids fed.” Trump noted that the U.S. has provided $60 million so far this year in aid to Gaza “without any thanks.” He added that he will tell Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to ensure that food gets to those who need it. He said he did not “particularly agree” with Netanyahu’s claim that there is no starvation in Gaza.

Also, 44 U.S. senators sent a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio asking the administration to do more to help the Palestinians. They claimed that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which the U.S. helped organize and is funding as an alternative to traditional aid agencies, had “failed to address the deepening humanitarian crisis and contributed to an unacceptable and mounting civilian death toll around the organization’s sites,” the AP said, in an apparent reference to reports of Israeli soldiers shooting people rushing to get food handouts.

Even Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a staunch Trump ally and opponent of foreign aid, wrote on social media, “It’s the most truthful and easiest thing to say that Oct. 7th in Israel was horrific and all hostages must be returned, but so is the genocide, humanitarian crisis, and starvation happening in Gaza.” Greene added that “what has been happening to innocent people and children in Gaza is horrific. This war and humanitarian crisis must end.”

Greene was referring to the surprise attack which the armed wing of the Hamas movement that controls Gaza staged inside Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages. Israel responded with a massive military attack on the 141-squaremile Gaza Strip and its two million people that has so far killed between 55,000 and 60,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

The starvation crisis should be no surprise. United Nations agencies had warned earlier, “Gaza faces the severe risk of famine as food consumption and nutrition indicators have reached their worst levels since the conflict began.” The World Health Organization (WHO) stated, “Malnutrition is on a dangerous trajectory in the Gaza Strip. The crisis remains entirely preventable. Deliberate blocking and delay of large-scale food, health and humanitarian aid has cost many lives.” The WHO stated that “nearly one in five children in Gaza City under 5 is now acutely malnourished.”

Also, the International Criminal Court (ICC) based in the Hague, issued arrest warrants in February for Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The court issued arrest warrants for Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, believed to have been the mastermind of the attack on Israel, whom Israel has since killed, and Hamas official Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri.

The ICC said it issued the warrants in response to an application by its chief prosecutor, Karim A. A. Khan, who based it on what he said was evidence of "starvation as a method of warfare" and the targeting of civilians and medical facilities.

Trump responded to the ICC arrest warrants with a presidential order in February imposing sanctions, including travel bans, against personnel of the court. He cited as reasons that they posed an "unusual and extraordinary threat" to U.S. national security and foreign policy; that the ICC engaged in "illegitimate and baseless actions" in its issuance of the warrants; and that there was need to protect U.S. sovereignty and that of its allies.

A year earlier, South Africa filed a complaint of genocide by Israel with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) – a United Nations agency – accusing the Israeli government of being “intent on destroying the Palestinians in Gaza” and asking the court to order an end to Israel’s invasion. That case has not yet been resolved, and Israel rejects all criticism, deeming the warrants "absurd and antisemitic."

“The Israel Defense Forces says that it takes extensive measures not to harm civilians in Gaza and accuses Hamas of using Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools and mosques,” The Times of Israel reported.

In the United States, and elsewhere, Israel’s actions have been drawing increasingly widespread protests demanding an end to U.S. military and other aid to Israel and to the war. But Joe Biden, who was president when the war started, ignored the protests and pledged full support for Israel.

Brown University’s Cost of War Project reported that the Biden administration provided Israel with military aid totaling $17.9 billion between October 2023 and October 2024, despite concerns about human rights violations, along with $9 billion in loan guarantees. Biden officials went to great lengths to ensure aid kept flowing even after reports of rights violations by Israeli soldiers, which The Guardian reported, contributed “to the sense of impunity with which Israel has approached its war in Gaza.”