In Committing the War Crime of Starvation, Israel Is Killing Off Babies and International Law

“There are 14,000 babies that will die within the next 48 hours unless we can reach them,” UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher warned the BBC on Tuesday, 20 May 2025 in respect of aid trucks then lined up at the border between Egypt and Gaza, which contained baby food, yet were not being allowed entry into the Gaza Strip due to the monthslong Israeli-imposed blockade on aid entering the region.

Israel commenced the current blockade on humanitarian aid entering Gaza on 2 March, with the intentional aim of starving the entire population of The Strip, now estimated to be around 2.1 million Palestinians, as part of Tel Aviv’s broader genocide against the civilian population of Gaza, with the UN estimating two weeks ago that one in five Gazans were then at risk of starving to death.

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court lists the intentional “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare” as an international war crime. And as the nation of Australia ratified the Rome Statute in 2002, it then, as required, enacted the international war crime of starvation into federal domestic law, where it’s contained under section 268.67 of the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth).

Despite the holocaust Israel has been perpetrating against the Palestinians of Gaza since October 2023, the recent global focus upon Israel’s act of intentionally depriving over 2 million people of food to the point that the entire population is facing starvation appears to have garnered more heightened attention to the plight of Gazans at this point in the 19-month-long genocide.

And in bowing to growing international pressure, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu agreed on Sunday to start allowing some aid trucks to enter the region containing people his country has long occupied and is currently killing off, which resulted in only five aid trucks being allowed entry into Gaza on Monday, despite the fact that nine thousand trucks filled with aid are currently parked at the border.

This slight concession at this point, however, will do absolutely nothing in terms of restoring the near complete erosion of the edifice of international law that Israel’s disregard for the sanctity of human life and the upholding of the rule of law has resulted in, as it’s been perpetrating the most heinous crime since the Holocaust of World War II.

War criminal calling the shots

At the time of writing, it’s likely many of the Palestinian babies, whom the UN humanitarian chief warned about are probably no longer alive, while by the time of reading this article, it’s more than likely that many more of the 14,000 babies he warned were in mortal danger are now dead, with their only crime having been born upon land that Israel now occupies and seeks to acquire outright.

Following the entry of the first five trucks, Tel Aviv approved a further 93 aid trucks to enter on Tuesday. However, this is after eleven weeks of a complete food, water, medicine and fuel blockade into the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and prior to October 2023, about 500 trucks carrying sustenance would cross over the border into the Gaza Strip every day.

Gaza is facing famine, as a result of a a total goods blockade, which was first implemented in October 2023 at the same time the genocidal carpet bombing of The Strip commenced. This complete blockade was then imposed after Gaza had already been subjected to a limiting goods blockade that had been ongoing since 2007.

Prior to the current blockade there had only been a resumption of humanitarian aid for just over a month beginning in late January this year, when a half-hearted ceasefire was set in place.

Famine is the most severe form of hunger crisis, and it’s extremely rare. Famine is defined as a crisis which involves 20 percent of households suffering extreme food deprivation, 30 percent of the population suffering malnutrition, two people out of every 10,000 involved dying every day as a result of hunger, while four out of every 10,000 children aged under five die daily during a famine.

Perhaps the most obscene aspect to the current hunger crisis that is sliding into a famine is that the person ultimately calling the shots on whether it continues is PM Netanyahu, and the ICC has issued an international arrest warrant against his name, in respect of a litany of international criminal offences, one of which is the war crime of using starvation as a method of warfare.

The international war crime of starvation

Entering into force on 1 July 2002, the Rome Statute served to establish a framework so that international atrocity crimes could be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court. Currently, all nations that have ratified the statute are obliged to arrest Netanyahu due to the 21 November 2024 ICC arrest warrant issued under his name, which includes the war crime of starvation.

Article 8 of the Rome Statute provides jurisdiction to the ICC to prosecute war crimes, which are defined as grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions.

Article 8(2)(b)(xxv) of the Rome Statute contains the war crime of “intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including wilfully impeding relief supplies as provided for under the Geneva Conventions”.

Article 77 of the Rome Statute outlines that an individual found guilty of any of the atrocity crimes contained within it, including starvation, face a maximum penalty of 30 years imprisonment, but if “justified by the extreme gravity of the crime and the individual circumstances of the convicted person”, a term of life imprisonment can be imposed.

As required by the act of ratifying the Rome Statute in 2002, the Australian government had to enact all of the various international atrocities crimes then contained in the international document into federal domestic law, where these offences now sit under division 268 of the Criminal Code, after coming into force on 1 September 2002.

The unique aspect to these domestic international offences is that they carry universal jurisdiction, which means they can be used to prosecute any individual, regardless of nationality, for the commission of any of the division 268 international atrocity crimes that have allegedly been carried out anywhere on the planet.

The war crime of starvation as a method of warfare is outlawed under section 268.67 of the Criminal Code, and it involves the “intentional deprivation of civilians of objects indispensable to their survival” or the “wilful impeding of relief supplies for civilians”, which are guaranteed under the terms of the Geneva Conventions, and this is all being done within the context of an armed conflict.

The crime of starvation in domestic Australian law carries up to 25 years imprisonment.

However, on enacting the laws, the Howard government also thought to create the attorney general’s fiat contained in section 268.121 of the Criminal Code, which requires the nation’s chief lawmaker to approve any atrocity crime prosecution, and section 268.122 ensures that once the AG denies such a prosecution, the decision cannot be reversed.

The result of this is that every attempt to prosecute a war crime, a crime against humanity or genocide in this country in the past has been blocked by the Australian attorney general.

Speaking in platitudes

Australian foreign minister Penny Wong issued a 19 May joint statement with 23 of her counterparts from allied nations welcoming resumed humanitarian aid but condemning the new model of aid deliverance the Israeli state is now applying to distribute aid into the Gaza Strip, because the United Nations and its humanitarian partners reject the initiative as unviable.

The new method of aid delivery is now being overseen by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which places the delivery of aid into the hands of private US security and logistics firms, which then sees these US companies dropping off sanctioned aid at established aid distribution hubs run by local aid agencies throughout the region serving up to 300,000 Palestinians each.

However, so as to avoid supplying members of Hamas with any aid, the system will require only registered and accredited persons being supplied with humanitarian aid. These people would be contacted via electronic messaging and notified as to when and where to turn up to collect aid allocated to them, at which point their identities would be verified via facial recognition technology.

“The UN has raised concerns that the proposed model cannot deliver aid effectively, at the speed and scale required,” the various foreign ministers said in their joint statement.

“Humanitarian aid should never be politicised, and Palestinian territory must not be reduced nor subjected to any demographic change.”

However, as Australians are being warned about thousands of babies dying within brief windows of time, after bearing witness to the mass starvation and heinous extermination of a civilian population for a year and a half, the foreign minister’s words provide little comfort in terms of seeing anything change, which means the ongoing sanctioning of Israel in its killing spree.

The Albanese government has failed to ever properly condemn Israel over its mass killings, but has rather supplied tacit support for the atrocities instead, whilst attempting to criminalise and silence domestic pro-Palestinian agitators calling on federal Labor to properly intervene in the illegal mass killing of a civilian population based upon its ethnicity.

Indeed, as foreign minister Wong continues to issue weak statements and flaccid diplomatic pressure, which serves no other purpose than to garner the derision of much of the Australian constiuency, it’s clear that on the global stage even keeping up the pretence of adhering to international humanitarian law is over, and we are entering a new age of lawless barbarity.