UN expert says Israeli PM Netanyahu clearly announced ‘starvation campaign’ in Gaza
The UN’s special rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, spoke to Al Jazeera earlier about Israel’s total blockade on Gaza, which has prevented the entry of all food, water and medicine to the territory for more than 50 days.
Here’s more from what the rapporteur said:
“Back in March and January 2024, the International Court of Justice recognised the issue of starvation and famine in Gaza in the context of genocide. And we are seeing it yet again. On March 3, Netanyahu announced that Israel would stop all goods and humanitarian aid from entering Gaza. This was over 50 days ago,” Fakhri said.
“Let’s recall that there is an international criminal warrant against Netanyahu and former [Defence] Minister Gallant for the crime of starvation, for crimes of humanity for mass murder, yet they continue announcing their intentions and executing this starvation campaign with no repercussions,” he said.
“Under international law, there is no condition in which anyone can deny humanitarian aid to civilians. So this is Israel admitting that it is using humanitarian aid for civilians as a bargaining chip, as leverage,” he said.
“This is a clear violation of international law. There is no exception to this.”
Palestinian child Osama el-Rakab is suffering from severe malnutrition and struggling for his life at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, on April 24
“The United States is complicit in the genocide, in the starvation of civilians,” Fakhri said. “Let’s look at who controls the borders, who controls the flow of goods and humanitarian aid, who controls everything that goes in and out of Gaza. It is Israel,” he said.
“What we saw in the last month, one month alone, child acute malnutrition increased by over 80 percent. So they are using children’s lives and the death of thousands in this negotiation process,” he said.
“Again, there is no condition, there is no political excuse to deny humanitarian aid to civilians, no matter what’s going on on the ground,” he added.
Israel using AI weapons to help target Hamas leaders: Report
The Israeli military has used artificial intelligence tools to kill Hamas leaders, including an AI-infused audio tool to track where phone calls are being made from, The New York Times reports, citing several anonymous Israeli and US officials.
The report cites a strike in October 2023 that utilised the audio tool – which had been developed a decade earlier, but augmented with AI tech in 2023 – to locate and kill the commander of Hamas’s Central Jabalia Battalion, Ibrahim Biari.
More than 100 civilians were also killed in that attack, which reportedly tracked Biari’s phone activity to a Hamas tunnel complex under a camp densely populated with displaced Palestinians in Jabalia, northern Gaza.
In addition to concerns over civilian casualties, the Israeli and US officials said there were also instances in which AI tech hastily developed and deployed by the Israeli military has resulted in mistaken identifications since October 2023.
