How Would You Like to Die?

CrossFireArabia
Opinion
July 27, 2025

Hilal Elver

As we approach the second anniversary of the horrific and genocidal assault on the civilian population of the Gaza Strip, we are witnessing Israel’s systematic disregard for international law and human rights and its weaponization of humanitarian principles. In any armed conflict, the denial of food and water constitutes a war crime under international criminal law. But the mass starvation in Gaza—which quickly evolved into a man-made famine—is unlike any other crisis in modern times.

In Gaza, not only is access to food and water deliberately obstructed, but humanitarian aid itself has become a tool of warfare—used as leverage and denied as a means of collective punishment. The visibility of this crisis, the abundance of credible evidence of war crimes, the immense suffering of civilians—above all women and children—and the impunity of powerful actors make this both a test case for the erosion of humanitarian norms and a tragic outlier in the history of international law.

The blockade and starvation of Gaza are not new. They have a long history—and a uniquely bleak future compared to other conflict-related famines. Since 2007, Gaza has been under Israeli blockade. During this period, Israel systematically calculated the minimum caloric intake required for survival—creating a so-called “Gaza Diet.”[1]

Entering the war, Israel had detailed knowledge of the population’s basic needs and made a conscious, sustained choice to deny adequate access to food and clean water for over 21 months.

Unlike other conflicts, there is no escape from the devastation in Gaza. The entire territory is a war zone, and all 2.3 million Palestinians are treated as enemies[2]—collectively punished and militarily targeted. Humanitarian convoys wait at border crossings, fully loaded, but are denied entry. Food rots within sight of starving families, often just meters away.

Due to Gaza’s specific circumstances, starvation spread rapidly—from the North to the Center and then to the South. By December 2023, with winter approaching, most homes and residential areas were destroyed. The majority of Gazans were living in tents or the ruins of buildings—without food, water, cooking facilities, heating, or sanitation. Evidence has long shown that catastrophic living conditions, a crumbling healthcare system, and severely inadequate and sporadic humanitarian aid produced mass malnutrition and imminent famine.

Deliberate targeting tactics

Israel has repeatedly denied UN and NGO reports about the use of starvation as a weapon. The US government also ignored clear warnings and overwhelming evidence. For months, most Western governments avoided using the words famine or genocide in relation to Gaza. The UN’s Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC)[3], the authoritative global body on famine assessments, has yet to formally declare a famine in Gaza—despite mounting evidence—due to political pressure from perpetrators. Statements by UN Special Rapporteurs, based on scientific data, and multiple interim rulings by the International Court of Justice [4] warning of the “plausibility of famine” have been disregarded. Instead, Israeli forces have responded with further attacks on aid convoys[5] and on civilians trying to collect sacks of flour.[6] These were not collateral damages; they were targeting tactics.

Day by day, the situation has gone from bad to worse—to catastrophic. On March 2, 2025, during a broken ceasefire, Israel blocked all international humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, allowing only minimal deliveries through a militarized and dehumanizing distribution system it controls. In March 2025, the blockade entered a harsher phase, marked by stricter restrictions and the militarization of aid distribution. After two months without food and water, the United States, alongside private contractors and mercenaries under Israeli military supervision, launched a long-planned entity: the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF)[7].

This new structure replaced over 400 non-militarized UN distribution points with just four distribution centers—located in highly insecure areas. Humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence were completely abandoned. UN agencies and international humanitarian organizations refused to participate in this privatized, militarized, and lethally deceptive system.

Dire results were feared from the outset. More than 1,000 people have died of Israeli army sniper attacks at these sites, and more than 5,000 have been injured. People walk for hours along dangerous, dusty roads, wait under the desert sun, and are given just 11 minutes to collect 25 kilograms[8] of flour before the GHF arbitrarily closes its gates. When they exit, the ordeal often continues. Many are shot—by Israeli forces, private security, or armed groups. Gaza’s civilians are forced to choose between being killed by snipers or dying of hunger. Today, simply following the path of supposed humanitarian aid amounts to a death sentence.

Israel knows no limits in committing war crimes

On July 20, 2025, Israeli tanks and snipers attacked a 25-truck World Food Programme convoy[9] at the Zikim crossing. More than 100 Palestinians waiting for food were killed. It is a demonic inversion of humanitarianism: starvation weaponized, aid turned into bait, and civilians punished for seeking sustenance.

Famine, though still undeclared, is now undeniably present in Gaza. Why does the IPC exist if it cannot act? In recent days alone, over 100 people have died of hunger[10], including infants. Humanitarian workers and medical staff are collapsing from exhaustion and malnutrition. Every day, 10–15 people die from starvation.

Starvation is a silent death. It hides its cruelty. It is a societal torture.[11] People lose the energy to ask for help. Children stop crying. It is also one of the most painful deaths—the body consuming itself. Children suffer first, and if they survive, they are left with lifelong physical and cognitive damage. The effects of the Gaza famine will persist for generations.

Even the death toll has become a political battleground. Israel accuses Gaza’s health authorities of inflating numbers, yet respected research institutions have reported far higher estimates. In July 2024, The Lancet [12] projected over 186,000 deaths—many from indirect causes such as starvation, dehydration, and exposure. Oxfam[13] now reports that in the past 100 days, the daily death rate in Gaza is over 250—higher than in any other 21st-century conflict.

Unless there is an immediate permanent ceasefire or a meaningful intervention by the international community, Gaza will become even more of a monstrous killing field—a real-life version of The Hunger Games. What once seemed like dystopian fiction is now a horrifying reality, unfolding in plain sight.

[1] https://visualizingpalestine.org/visual/the-gaza-diet/
[2] https://www.isdglobal.org/digital_dispatches/no-innocents-the-collective-blame-of-palestinians-online/
[3] https://www.ipcinfo.org
[4] https://www.icj-cij.org/node/203447
[5] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/30/israel-kills-world-central-kitchen-aid-workers-in-gaza
[6] https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/03/un-experts-condemn-flour-massacre-urge-israel-end-campaign-starvation-gaza
[7] https://www.972mag.com/gaza-social-collapse-criminal-gangs/
[8] https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/jul/22/food-aid-gaza-deaths-visual-story-ghf-israel
[9] https://www.wfp.org/news/gaza-convoy-incident-statement
[10] https://www.ft.com/content/6899af82-1a6f-4ec6-91ba-41e7a5f0012d?utm_source=chatgpt.com
[11] https://cjil.uchicago.edu/print-archive/siege-starvation-war-crime-societal-torture
[12] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01169-3/fulltext
[13] https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/daily-death-rate-gaza-higher-any-other-major-21st-century-conflict-oxfam

*Opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Anadolu’s editorial policy.

The author is a former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food (2014-2020) and a member of the High Level Panel of Experts (HLPE) of the UN Committee of World Food Security (CFS).

CrossFireArabia

Dr. Marwan Asmar holds a PhD from Leeds University and is a freelance writer specializing on the Middle East. He has worked as a journalist since the early 1990s in Jordan and the Gulf countries, and been widely published, including at Albawaba, Gulf News, Al Ghad, World Press Review and others.

Opinion

Iran is Writing The Final Chapter!

CrossFireArabia
May 20, 2026

By Ziyad Farhan Al-Majali

In major wars, results are not always measured by the ‘noise volume’, number of airstrikes, or the extent of the military maps displayed on TV screens. Sometimes the noise is louder than the decisive action, and the roar is stronger than the ability to end the battle.

From this perspective, the Israeli-American war on Iran can be read as a tumultuous moment in the history of regional conflict. Here however, it was not the final moment which Israel desired and was looking for.

Tel Aviv wanted to present the war as its declaration of its superiority, one that would be final. It wanted to say that its reach could penetrate deep inside Iran, that the old balance of deterrence was broken, and that the aftermath of the strike would not be the same as it was before.

Therefore, Israel’s “lion roar” was to be loud from the very beginning: Threatening rhetoric, painful strikes, psychological warfare — a clear attempt to portray Iran as a state exposed to Israeli and American power.

But the roar by itself, however loud it boomed, was not enough to bring about a political end. True, Iran suffered heavy blows, with sensitive facilities, infrastructure and sites sustained significant damage, finding itself facing a broad economic, military, and psychological siege and pressure.

Yet, despite all this, the war did not topple the Iranian government, nor did it remove the state from the regional equation, nor did it end its nuclear program as a negotiating issue, nor did it break its deterrent and maneuvering capabilities.

Herein lies the central paradox of this war. Israel raised the stakes to their highest points, but it did not achieve a decisive victory. Israel sought to eliminate the so-called Iranian threat with a single strike or a series of blows, only to discover that Iran is not a military site that can be wiped off the map, nor a single facility whose destruction would end the conflict.

Rather, it is a deep-rooted, expansive state with multiple levers of pressure: From the Strait of Hormuz to Lebanon, from missiles to air corridors, from allies to the capacity for long-term patience. Iran is a tough nut!

Perhaps the most dangerous revelation of the war is that it did not produce a definitive answer, but rather raised even greater questions. Can military force alone reshape Iran? Can bombing impose a stable political settlement? Will weakening Tehran lead to its expulsion from the region, or will it push it to rebuild its influence more cautiously and covertly? Was the war the beginning of the end, or the start of a new phase of a postponed conflict?

Iran emerged from the war wounded, but it didn’t exit the negotiating table. It appeared battered, but it did not collapse. Maybe besieged but it is still holding cards. Whilst today Iran might be in a predicament, but it has not lost its ability to negotiate, to threaten, and wait for the next move.

This is precisely is what is making the outcome far more complex than what Israel has tried to portray: The war may have succeeded in inflicting pain on Iran, but it did not eliminating the Iranian state and its apparatus.

While Israel may have achieved a significant show of force, it did not achieve an outright and decisive victory. The decisive outcome it sought remained incomplete, and the deterrence it aimed to restore remained contingent on what would follow after the war: Would Iran back down? Would it retaliate? Would it accept American terms? Would it open the Strait of Hormuz according to Washington’s wishes? And would the Lebanese front be detached from Tehran’s calculations, or would it remain part of the long-term equation of retaliation?

Therefore, the war does not appear to be the end of the conflict with Iran, but rather a new chapter in a broader, protracted struggle. In this chapter, Israel raised its voice to the maximum, but it could not write the final chapter. States do not fall through mere bluster, regional projects do not end with a single blow, and conflicts that have accumulated over decades are not resolved in days, no matter how intense the fighting is.

In short, Israel’s “roar” was loud, perhaps painful, and perhaps unprecedented in some aspects, but it was not enough to topple Iran or remove it from the scene. The din of war has risen, the region has been shaken, and calculations have shifted, but Iran remains on the precipice, not outside history.

Therefore, the most accurate description of this phase is not a complete Israeli victory, nor an Iranian resistance without cost, but rather a war whose end is not yet in sight: A war in which Israel roared loudly, but was not able to bring down Iran.

This article was reproduced from the Jo24 Arabic website in Jordan and appears in the www.crossfirearabia.com.

Opinion

Gaza Fishermen Dream of Life Prior to 7 Oct

CrossFireArabia
May 19, 2026

CROSSFIREARABIA – The fishing industry, once a pillar of the Gaza economy, now stands in total devastation due to Israel’s continuing war on the 364-kilometer Strip that doesn’t seem to stop despite the fact that a ceasefire was signed on 10 October, 2025.

Zakaria Bakr, General-Secretary of the General Union of Workers in Fishing and Marine Production affirmed that the Gaza fishing sector — which for decades has been a primary source of income for thousands of families and a key pillar of food security — is now in ruins because of the more than two and a half years of Israeli bombing on the Gaza Strip, including on its beaches and coastal areas. Its a narrative of devastation.

Bakr said the systematic targeting of the fishing industry by Israeli occupation forces has lead to its near-total collapse.

Speaking to Quds Press, Bakr said that this targeting has included an almost complete ban on fishermen and preventing them from going a few hundred meters after the shoreline; a situation made with vehemence soon after 7 October, 2023 when Israel launched a destructive war on the Strip and with no let up.

Bakr added that lethal force started to be used against fishermen not to step even meters into the Gaza blue shorelines. They still take the risk because of the miserable economic situation they have been reduced to. But this has proved costly for more than 230 of them have been shot dead at point blank range.

The union chief says hundreds have been arrested as well, explaining the fishing sector has been subjected to mass destruction affecting up to 95 percent of its infrastructure, with fishing boats ruined and warehouses struck either by Israeli gunboats and/or missiles from the air.

UN figures as well testify to this fact, stating the fishing infrastructure include ice factories, storage facilities, maintenance workshops and wholesale fish markets which have been destroyed over the past two-and-a-half years of slaughter.

This has led to the near-total collapse of the fishing industry, depriving thousands of families of their only source of income. Today, it’s a stark contrast. Prior to October 2023, there were 4200 registered fishermen with 6000 support workers on the boats and the fishing sector sustained around 100,000 people in Gaza but no more.

The destruction of the sector has created an additional food security crisis. Before October 2023, the fish total annual tonnage production stood at 5,410 according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Today, its less than 7.3 percent.

It is indeed a hard life for fishermen. Before October 2023 Gaza fishermen used to catch between them, 15,000 to 20,000 kilos, daily. Now, it is down to a trickle with UN feeds reporting a mere 2 to 5 kilograms of fish daily, and I dare say, if they can pass the Israeli gunboats and snipers who are waiting near the coast.

Bakr added that what Gaza’s fishermen are going through from the Israeli gunboat harassment is a blatant violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, particularly the rights to work, life, and dignified living. It directly contradicts the core principles established by the International Labour Organization regarding safe working conditions and the protection of workers, he pointed out.

Bakr said despite the hopelessness of the sector, his union continues to be active, recently sending letters to several international organizations to present them with the grim reality facing the fishing sector in Gaza. These organizations included the United Nations, the International Labour Organization, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), International Committee of the Red Cross, as well as other international and human rights institutions.

“We informed these institutions, on behalf of the fishermen of the Gaza Strip, of the scale of the catastrophe facing this labor-intensive sector, which represents one of the oldest and most important economic, social, and cultural components of Palestinian life and society, and which today, is facing one of the harshest humanitarian and professional crises of modern times,” he added.

He noted that the union has called on international institutions to take a number of urgent measures, most notably providing immediate international protection for fishermen while working at sea, pressuring for the lifting of restrictions on access to fishing areas in a safe and unrestricted manner, and halting all forms of targeting against fishermen and their equipment.

He also called for support in rehabilitating the fishing sector, including boats and related infrastructure, providing urgent assistance programs for affected families, and dispatching fact-finding missions to document violations against fishermen and issue official reports on them.

Bakr stressed that what Gaza’s fishermen are enduring today represents “a stain on the conscience of the international community,” which remains powerless in the face of depriving civilian workers of their most basic rights to work and life.

He called on international institutions to assume their legal and humanitarian responsibilities and to take urgent action to put an end to this tragedy, ensuring that Gaza’s fishermen can safely return to the sea and restore their legitimate right to work and live with dignity.

A once proud fishing industry, today, it is not, thanks to the Israeli bombardment that topped over 100,000 tons of explosives and dynamite. Fishermen and their families will never forgive the hateful and vengeful Israelis who today reduced their sector to 50 small boats for the entire 40-kilometer coastline that stretches from Rafah in the south to Israel in the north.

The Gaza fishing industry once used to have 2000 fishing vessels with more than a 1000 motorized boats and 900 rowboats generating $10-15 million to Gaza’s local economy, 3 percent of the entire Palestinian GDP.

“All my money is gone. Out of my big 17-meter boat and 10 smaller boats, nothing remains but metal sticking out of the water. The sea was an integral part of the Gazan economy; fishermen would feed their families with their catch and could make a good living. Now, everything is in ruins,” says Jamal Al Moodi, a once proud Gaza fisherman.

Dr Asmar is a writer based in Amman and is the editor of www.crossfirearabia.com