Israel’s eight-week food, water and humanitarian blockade on Gaza has “become a tool of extermination”, Human Rights Watch’s interim executive director said on Thursday.
“Hearing Israeli officials flaunt plans to squeeze Gaza’s two million people into an even tinier area while making the rest of the land uninhabitable should be treated like a five-alarm fire in London, Brussels, Paris, and Washington,” said Federico Borello.
“Israel’s blockade has transcended military tactics to become a tool of extermination.”
HRW criticised the Israeli government’s plans to demolish what remains of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure and concentrate the Palestinian population into a tiny area as “an abhorrent escalation of its ongoing crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and acts of genocide”.
The human rights organisation also said that the 153 states that had signed up to the Genocide Convention were liable for failing to act.
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It said “a more robust response” was needed from governments and institutions and singled out the United States, France, Germany, the European Union, and the United Kingdom, saying they could do more such as end weapons sales, military assistance and diplomatic support to Israel, impose sanctions on Israeli officials, and consider suspending bilateral agreements.
“States that are party to the Genocide Convention committed themselves not just to punish genocide, but also to prevent it from taking place,” said Borello.
“Failing to act to stop Israeli authorities from starving civilians in Gaza and further rendering it unlivable flies in the face of the very purpose of the convention.”
HRW said that individual states have a responsibility to prevent genocide as soon as they learn that there is a serious risk of genocide being committed.
A definitive determination that genocide is already underway is not required, as HRW set out in an April 2025 intervention, in a case currently before the UK courts challenging the UK government’s decision to continue to license military equipment used by Israeli forces in Gaza.
HRW also warned that states that do not, risk legal liability for failing to act to prevent genocide in Gaza. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2007 found that the obligation applied extraterritorially “to a State wherever it may be acting or may be able to act in ways appropriate to meeting the obligation.”
Famine
The United Nations has warned that Gaza is facing its worst humanitarian crisis since the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza.
‘Death of a generation’: Gaza infants battle starvation under deepening Israeli siege
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The World Health Organisation said on 11 May that Gaza is experiencing “one of the world’s worst hunger crises, unfolding in real time,” citing a Gaza Ministry of Health report that at least 57 children have died from malnutrition in Gaza since the blockade began.
Israel and the United States have outlined a plan to use private military contractors to provide aid only to certain parts of Gaza.
The UN and aid groups operating in Gaza warned that the plan won’t reach the most vulnerable and appear to reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic.
The Integrated Phase Classification said the plan is “highly insufficient to meet the population’s essential needs”.
In mid-April, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said that “no humanitarian aid will enter Gaza”, while National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said that it would not “allow even a gram of food or aid” in “as long as our hostages are dying in tunnels”.
According to the Israeli government, 58 Israeli captives are being held in Gaza, of whom 23 are believed to be alive.
Hamas on Monday released Israeli-American Edan Alexander, who was serving in the Israeli military at the time he was taken captive.
