Stop the starvation policy in Gaza ghetto

There is something deeply disturbing - and even more ironic - in what the Tel Aviv regime is meting out to the Palestinian people in Gaza while our attention is turned towards the ongoing Israel-Iran escalation. Israel's restricted access to food - along with medicines and other essential items - in Gaza is part of a larger strategy that those familiar with modern Jewish history will recognise. Forced, deliberate starvation played a role in the Holocaust. In the Jewish ghettos of Nazi Germany, access to food was tightly controlled. On Saturday, Israeli firing and airstrikes killed 45 Palestinians, most of them at, or near, food and aid distribution spots across Gaza. The dots are there for joining.

In the Palestinian ghetto of Netanyahu-ruled Israel, continued military operations and blockade have left the entire population of 2.1 mn people facing acute food shortages, with nearly half-a-million at risk of famine by end-September, according to UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) report, 'Hunger Hotspots', released on Monday. To find the Israeli-German comparison odious would be to pussyfoot the obvious.

There have been enough statements and action to believe that dehumanisation of Gaza's Palestinians has become state policy. Geopolitical reactions - including India breaking rank with SCO on condemning Israel for attacking Iran - must not be extended to turning a blind eye to Tel Aviv's denial of food and aid to Gaza's pulverised and food-denied. The world, especially those countries friendly with Israel, should use the same political adroitness to ensure targeted starvation is immediately stopped being used as a land clearance policy by a regime using self-defence as a means to create 'living space' for its Jewish citizenry.