UN Torture Expert: Israel Using Starvation as Weapon of War against Gaza – World news

Dr. Alice Jill Edwards, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, called on Israel to end a systematic campaign to deprive Palestinian civilians of basic necessities.

“Depriving people of food, water and dignity has been a serious and recurring violation of this war and it must end,” Edwards said on Wednesday.

She warned that both the Israeli regime and its main backer, the United States, along with all parties complicit in the siege, are obligated under international law to ensure humanitarian access to the occupied population.

Edwards, also affiliated with Oxford University’s Master of Studies in International Human Rights Law, highlighted deeply disturbing reports of Palestinians being murdered while waiting at US-backed food distribution sites, adding that widespread malnutrition and hunger are the direct consequences of the blockade.

Multiple UN agencies have already denounced the so-called distribution system supported by the US and Israel as “a death trap” and “an abomination.”

Edwards said the risk of total famine in Gaza was increasing by the day and warned of “catastrophic physiological consequences” for Palestinians, especially children and pregnant women, who face malnutrition, organ failure, and death as a result of the Israeli policy of collective starvation.

She added that this form of warfare by Israel—through both bombardment and enforced hunger—reveals the regime’s entrenched brutality.

“The psychological impact of being deprived of food and water is inherently cruel,” Edwards said, pointing to the trauma caused by militarized and unpredictable aid distribution.

“Constantly changing rules, militarized distributions and daily and hourly uncertainty about when one is going to access these basic necessities is causing utter despair, stress and trauma,” she added.

While the Israeli regime recently announced a so-called “tactical pause” in military operations to allow food aid for a limited three-month window, Edwards cautioned that only a permanent ceasefire could provide real relief.

A previous ceasefire was shattered in March 2025 when Israel launched an unprovoked airstrike, violating the truce with the Palestinian resistance.

Edwards reiterated her demand for the immediate release of arbitrarily detained Palestinians and called for independent investigations into allegations of torture, war crimes, and other abuses by the Israeli occupation.

The International Criminal Court in November 2024 issued arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former war minister Yoav Gallant on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.