What is unfolding in Gaza is no longer merely the humanitarian fallout of war. It is the systematic construction of a humanitarian void — a man-made catastrophe driven by Israeli policy and sustained through overlapping political, military, and administrative controls that have transformed civilian survival itself into a battlefield.
Across the territory, access to food, medicine, shelter, and water is being deliberately throttled. Humanitarian corridors — the final lifelines for a besieged population — are obstructed, manipulated, or shut down altogether. The result is the slow asphyxiation of more than two million civilians trapped inside one of the gravest humanitarian disasters of the modern era.
From Siege to Structural Starvation
Over the past months, Israeli authorities have tightened their stranglehold on the entry of food supplies, medical equipment, and essential relief materials into the Gaza Strip. Entire communities now survive in ruins, with hundreds of thousands of families living without proper shelter, forced into repeated displacement across landscapes reduced to rubble. Famine, disease, and mass homelessness have converged into a single, relentless crisis.
At the start of the new year, this policy escalated dramatically. Thirty-seven international humanitarian organizations received formal notices from Israeli authorities declaring their legal registrations invalid — an administrative maneuver that, in practice, threatens to sever the last remaining humanitarian arteries feeding Gaza’s population.
The consequences are immediate and devastating: the dismantling of Gaza’s humanitarian response system itself.
Targeting the Humanitarian Infrastructure
In an official statement, Women Journalists Without Chains warned that these measures are not bureaucratic anomalies but integral components of a broader Israeli strategy designed to impose lethal living conditions on Palestinians — through engineered starvation, forced displacement, and the systematic erosion of civilian survival.
Such policies, the organization stressed, pursue objectives expressly prohibited under international law and amount to acts of genocide.
Beyond blocking aid, Israel has moved to restructure the humanitarian sphere altogether by imposing a new registration regime on international NGOs. Organizations are now compelled to surrender extensive information regarding staff, funding, operations, and programs — requirements that strike at the core of humanitarian independence and neutrality.
In response, 53 international NGOs operating in the occupied Palestinian territories issued a joint warning that the regulations could paralyze humanitarian operations on a massive scale and expose hundreds of thousands of civilians to immediate mortal danger.
The European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid publicly rejected the legality of these measures, stating on X: “The European Union has been clear: the NGO registration law cannot be applied in its current form.”
Women Journalists Without Chains further emphasized that arbitrary bans or licensing decisions that deprive civilians of essential necessities constitute fully established international crimes.
The Anatomy of a Humanitarian Catastrophe
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, Israel’s ongoing assault has killed 71,386 Palestinians between October 7, 2023 and January 4, 2026.
Over the past two years, Israeli forces have dropped more than 150,000 tons of explosives on Gaza, obliterating nearly 90% of the territory’s infrastructure. More than 440,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed. Over two million Palestinians have been forcibly displaced — many repeatedly, sometimes ten times or more — in a desperate search for safety that no longer exists.
More than 55 million tons of rubble now clog Gaza’s streets, crippling rescue operations while civil defense teams struggle amid equipment shortages and continued bombardment.
Hundreds of thousands of civilians now sleep in the open, deprived of food, clean water, and medical supplies. At the same time, humanitarian aid convoys remain stalled at crossings — visible, available, and deliberately blocked.
Collapse of the Health System
Medical organizations have not been spared. Among those under threat is Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) — one of the last major medical lifelines in Gaza. The organization warned that the suspension of its operations would trigger humanitarian collapse in a territory where the health system has already been systematically destroyed.
In 2025 alone, MSF teams conducted nearly 800,000 medical consultations, treated more than 100,000 wounded, and delivered hundreds of millions of liters of clean water to civilians.
The organization’s verdict was unequivocal: Gaza’s humanitarian response is already on the brink — and cannot survive further dismantling.
Starvation as State Policy
Although the October 2025 ceasefire agreement formally guaranteed the entry of 600 aid trucks per day, humanitarian agencies report that only 100 to 300 trucks are allowed through — a fraction of what is required to prevent famine.
Women Journalists Without Chains accused Israel of deliberately employing starvation as a weapon of war by restricting aid flows and manipulating relief routes. The consequences are catastrophic: extreme malnutrition, rampant disease, and the near-total destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system — with 90% of medical infrastructure already eliminated.
Crimes Under International Law
The organization stressed that these policies constitute grave breaches of international humanitarian law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention, which obligates occupying powers to ensure food and medical care for civilians and facilitate humanitarian assistance.
Under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Israel’s conduct — carried out through widespread and systematic attacks against civilians and the intentional creation of life-destroying conditions — may constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.
A Demand for Accountability
Women Journalists Without Chains called on the United Nations, the European Union, and all states party to the Geneva Conventions to act immediately and decisively to compel Israel to lift all restrictions on humanitarian access, reverse the arbitrary banning of humanitarian organizations, and restore the independence and neutrality of humanitarian operations in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem.
The organization further demanded independent international investigations into the crimes of starvation and obstruction of humanitarian relief, and the prosecution of all individuals and entities responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts of genocide in Gaza.
Such accountability, the organization concluded, is not only a legal obligation — it is the only path to restoring any remaining credibility in the global system that claims to protect human rights and human dignity.
