By Robert David

I. Deliberate Design: The Caloric Cage of Gaza

“We control Gaza’s caloric intake.”
— Senior Israeli official, quoted in Haaretz, July 2025

The crime did not come by accident. It arrived by spreadsheet.

Behind the rubble and refugee camps lies a warfare strategy rooted not in bullets but in bureaucracies—a hunger war planned, tabulated, and executed with chilling precision. In July 2025, leaked military documents and humanitarian testimonies confirmed what Palestinians have long feared: Israel is not merely starving Gaza—it is doing so by design.

According to Haaretz, a senior Israeli defense planner admitted that the IDF has maintained covert protocols for years to calculate and restrict the number of calories allowed into Gaza, a system so granular it mirrored the rationing schemes of medieval sieges. This isn’t chaos. This is control.

In a damning mosaic of evidence from +972 Magazine, Middle East Eye, and The Intercept, the siege emerges not as a byproduct of war, but as its principal tool. Food is the new frontier of domination. The wheat silos are bombed, the aid trucks turned away, the bakeries reduced to ash. Every loaf withheld is a weapon. Every water tanker denied is a death sentence.

This is no mere negligence. It is policy.

Satellite images reviewed by Paulgo.io show systematic destruction of Gaza’s food infrastructure—farms, flour mills, fishing boats, and greenhouses turned to twisted metal. Middle East Eye reports that over 80% of children in the north are experiencing acute malnutrition, with many collapsing from hunger in schoolyards turned into morgues.

And still, the trucks do not come.

Even as international agencies plead for access, Israel tightens the noose. According to Reuters and BBC, UN convoys carrying rice, lentils, and infant formula were either denied entry or fired upon by Israeli drones while queued at the Rafah crossing. This isn’t blockade—it’s bloodless murder in bureaucratic form.

The result is a caloric culling—a slow-motion execution of a people trapped between the sea, the siege, and the silence of the so-called international community. As Mondoweiss bluntly declared: “This is a war crime. Documented. Ongoing. Unpunished.”

The architects of this famine wear suits, not fatigues. They write policy briefs, not manifestos. And yet their crime is no less savage. It is a genocide by metric ton, a slaughter by starvation, a death sentence wrapped in logistics.

And the world watches, full.

II. The Empire Eats First: American Complicity in the Starvation of Gaza

The siege is Israeli, but the silence is American.

According to declassified cables published by The Intercept on July 23, 2025, senior U.S. intelligence officials warned the White House months ago that Israel’s Gaza policy amounted to deliberate famine. The briefings were not ambiguous. The IDF was intentionally targeting food systems, they said, and the results would be catastrophic within weeks. The Biden administration read the warnings—and did nothing.

This is not passive complicity. This is strategic permission.

In Washington, war crimes are tolerated as long as the missiles fly in the right direction. While babies in Khan Younis cry themselves to death from dehydration, State Department spokespersons tell the press they are “monitoring the situation.” The Pentagon signs another weapons deal. Congress claps.

This isn’t just a foreign policy failure. It’s a spiritual collapse.

According to Mondoweiss, American munitions were traced to the destruction of at least six major food storage facilities in central Gaza. A truck convoy carrying flour and cooking oil—coordinated by USAID—was reportedly bombed while en route to a UNRWA site. No apology was issued. No investigation followed. Just another line item in the budget of empire.

The weaponization of hunger is illegal under Article 54 of the Geneva Conventions, which forbids attacks on “objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population.” Yet the U.S. continues to fund, arm, and diplomatically shield the nation that has reduced grain to a military target and drinking water to an “unintended casualty.”

It is not that America doesn't know. It is that America doesn’t care.

This is the same government that taught Latin America how to disappear its dissidents, that taught the Saudis how to bomb a school bus, and that taught Israel how to collapse a population without ever appearing on the battlefield. Hunger has become a subcontracted atrocity—outsourced cruelty with U.S. fingerprints on every checkpoint.

As Gaza’s children waste away, American leaders tweet concern and wire weapons. They perform grief while facilitating genocide. They tell us Israel has a right to defend itself—even when that defense takes the form of starving two million people trapped in a strip of land no wider than a rifle’s reach.

In Gaza, every spoonful stolen is American-approved.

III. The Doctrine of Denial: How the IDF Engineered a Famine

The food didn’t run out—it was run out. By policy. By blueprint. By intent.

In one of the most damning revelations of the 2025 Gaza campaign, Haaretz unearthed internal Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) documents showing that military planners calculated the minimum caloric intake required to keep Gaza’s population “on the edge of malnutrition but alive.” This was not aid. It was arithmetic—war by spreadsheet, genocide by Excel.

“We control Gaza’s caloric intake,” said one senior Israeli official. Not behind closed doors but quoted plainly. Proudly. Publicly.

This strategy is not new. As +972 Magazine has long reported, Israel’s siege doctrine has always contained what it euphemistically calls “economic warfare”—but July 2025 marked the point where caloric warfare became standard operating procedure. A siege not to end a threat, but to slowly unmake a people.

Gaza’s food infrastructure was not collateral—it was the target.

As detailed by Paulgo.io and confirmed via satellite imagery, Israeli forces systematically destroyed wheat silos, fishing boats, bakeries, livestock pens, and irrigation lines. Farms were bombed. Fields were salted. Dairy cows were gunned down. It was not just food that was under fire—it was the ability to feed.

UN officials, quoted in Reuters and Al Jazeera, report that over 90% of Gaza’s food warehouses have now been rendered inoperable. Aid convoys are either blocked at the border or obliterated mid-route. According to Middle East Eye, entire neighborhoods have been transformed into starvation zones—death by design, rationed by drones, and justified by propaganda.

This is not siege warfare in the traditional sense. It is a new doctrine of denial—the militarization of emptiness. It’s not about defeating an enemy; it’s about creating a vacuum so total that it crushes the human soul beneath it.

In Gaza today, food is not just scarce. It’s forbidden.

The IDF has turned calories into contraband. Baby formula into a battleground. Water filters into military targets. And with every denial, every decimated bakery, every aid truck vaporized by a precision missile, Israel’s generals send a single, crystal-clear message to Palestinians: You do not deserve to eat.

This is no longer a conflict. It is a controlled collapse. An engineered famine masquerading as national defense. And it reveals something far more terrifying than incompetence—it reveals intention.

IV. Voices from the Womb of Famine: Eyewitnesses in the Killing Fields of Hunger

“My daughter is two. She weighs less than a newborn.”

— Laila H., mother of three, Deir al-Balah camp (BBC News, July 2025)

The numbers are unspeakable. But the voices cannot be silenced.

While governments draft statements and generals draw lines, Gaza’s people speak from the abyss. In the smoking ruins of Beit Lahia, Jabalia, and Rafah, hunger does not arrive metaphorically—it arrives in the bones of children. It shrinks their bellies and hollows their eyes until they look like tiny ghosts with beating hearts.

A UN medic quoted in Al Jazeera described toddlers too weak to cry. Infants whose skin flaked off from dehydration. Mothers forced to mix saltwater with crushed weeds, calling it “soup” to keep hope alive. “We are watching children starve in real time,” she said. “And there’s nothing left to give.”

At Nasser Hospital—what’s left of it—emergency nurse Osama F. told Middle East Eye he sees five to ten starvation cases per hour. “We used to treat wounds,” he said. “Now we just try to keep them breathing.” He paused. “Even when they ask for food, we have to lie. We have to say it’s coming.”

But it isn’t.

Paulgo.io published footage from a refugee camp in Khan Younis where parents dig through rubble for expired food cans and weeds. Children chew cardboard. One boy, six years old, tries to eat sand. When asked why, he says, “It feels full.”

According to GhosterySearch and Qwant, which gathered suppressed footage from local journalists, IDF leaflets dropped into Gaza warn residents to evacuate—but do not allow passage to food or water. These aren’t safe zones. They’re starvation pens.

In the words of a UNRWA field doctor quoted in Reuters, “This is not famine due to logistics. This is famine by decree.”

And still, the voices rise.

From Mondoweiss: “I gave my son the last bread crumb I had,” said Fatima, a 72-year-old grandmother in Shuja’iyya. “He smiled. Then he stopped moving.”

From BBC: “We boil garbage to smell something warm,” said an 8-year-old girl whose name was withheld for fear of reprisal. “It smells like food.”

From Mail.ru: “We haven’t eaten in four days,” said one man outside a destroyed bakery. “But we are still not dead enough for the world to care.”

This isn’t just famine—it’s forced forgetting. A global hypnosis in which genocide is reduced to buffering video and grief is turned into data packets.

But the voices remain. Raw. Unfiltered. Unburied.

And each one makes a lie of the silence.

V. Beyond Starvation: Law, Lies, and the Last Rites of Empire

A. Lawless by Design: Starvation as a War Crime

You do not need a law degree to know this is criminal. But the law speaks clearly anyway.

According to the Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 54 of Protocol I, “Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited.” It is not vague. It is not conditional. It is international law, ratified by most nations on Earth—including Israel.

Yet in July 2025, Gaza’s food infrastructure was not a battlefield mishap. It was a deliberate target, as confirmed by satellite evidence, declassified memos, and testimony from UN officials (Reuters, Al Jazeera, The Intercept).

In Nuremberg, the architects of siege and starvation in Warsaw were prosecuted. In The Hague today, the architects of Gaza’s siege dine in peace, immune by alliance and protected by veto.

+972 Magazine notes that the ICC has opened preliminary inquiries but has yet to act—paralyzed by geopolitics, bribery, and fear. Meanwhile, over 30,000 children in Gaza are at imminent risk of starvation, and Israel continues to enjoy full diplomatic impunity, primarily backed by the United States and the European Union.

When famine is engineered and no tribunal answers, what is law but ash?

B. A Gagged World: The Western Media’s War on Truth

CNN runs a special on Gaza—three minutes long, framed with the words “complex situation.”

The New York Times mentions famine in paragraph nine. The Washington Post prefers euphemisms like “food insecurity events.” BBC editors internally debate whether “deliberate starvation” sounds too harsh and settle on “logistical complications in humanitarian access.”

This is not journalism. This is narrative laundering—a public relations arm of empire in a tailored suit.

According to GhosterySearch and Startpage-indexed leaks, multiple photojournalists from Gaza had their credentials revoked for publishing images of emaciated infants, dead from dehydration, held by dust-covered mothers screaming for the world to look. But the world didn’t. The photos never ran.

Meanwhile, AI-generated Israeli defense narratives flood social media. DuckDuckGo’s digest revealed bot networks seeded thousands of posts daily, framing the famine as either a “Hamas hoax” or “self-inflicted due to misgovernance.” These lies trend faster than truth.

The Intercept uncovered internal memos showing Western outlets were pressured not to use the word 'genocide' by diplomatic liaisons from Tel Aviv and Washington. Instead, editorial guidelines emphasized “both sides” coverage, even as one side held all the food, all the weapons, and all the exits.

In Gaza, children die off-camera. And in the West, anchors smile on cue.

C. The Final Sacrament of Empire: Starvation as Theology

Every empire has its altar. Rome had crucifixion. America has sanctions. Israel has famine.

This is no longer just war. It is ritualized desecration—the sacrifice of a people to maintain the myth of eternal innocence. The empty bellies of Gaza have become the final offering at the altar of Western exceptionalism. And the gods of capital are pleased.

As Chris Hedges wrote of war zones past, “We become monsters so we can say we are not like them.” Now, the starvation of Gaza is not a policy failure—it is a Eucharist of imperial faith, consumed by those who believe they are chosen, right, and above accountability.

In the theology of power, Gazans are the necessary burnt offering. Their hunger serves a higher logic: deterrence, deterrence, deterrence. Their extinction is recast as restraint. Their agony, an unfortunate necessity.

And yet the land does not lie. It wails. It remembers.

Every stolen grain. Every bombed bakery. Every ration intercepted by a drone programmed by men who will never taste hunger but understand its strategic value.

This is famine as doctrine. Genocide by doctrine. And doctrine without repentance is damnation.

VI. From Starvation to Resistance: A Call to Justice

The world has seen this before. It has turned away before.

But silence is complicity. To watch Gaza, starve is to endorse murder by neglect. It is to permit famine as policy and genocide as strategy.

No longer can this be called “conflict.” This is crime. A calculated siege designed to crush a people’s body and soul. Every ration withheld, every convoy blocked, every bombed bakery is a stroke against humanity.

Yet even in the shadow of hunger, resistance rises.

In Gaza’s streets, in whispered prayers, in the eyes of starving children, the flame of endurance burns. The people starve—but they do not submit. They remind the world that to starve a people is to steal their future—but it cannot steal their spirit.

International courts may delay. Media may obfuscate. Governments may betray. But truth is a weapon sharper than any missile. Justice is not a gift—it is a demand.

This famine must end. This siege must break. The architects of hunger must face the law, the history books, and the judgment of conscience.

For Gaza, for humanity, for the future:

Let the world hear the hunger.

Let the world see the starving.

Let the world answer the call for justice now.

Sources:

• Middle East Eye. (2025, July 22). Starvation as a weapon: How Israel is deliberately fomenting famine in Gaza. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/gaza-famine-weapon-israel-deliberate-starvation-july-2025
• Al Jazeera. (2025, July 20). Gaza hunger crisis worsens as Israel blocks aid convoys. https://www.aljazeera.com
• +972 Magazine. (2025, July 18). A quiet genocide: The politics of starving Gaza. https://www.972mag.com
• Mondoweiss. (2025, July 21). Israel’s use of starvation in Gaza is a war crime. https://mondoweiss.net
• The Intercept. (2025, July 23). Famine in Gaza: U.S. intelligence warned months ago. https://theintercept.com
• Haaretz. (2025, July 19). IDF general: ‘We control Gaza’s caloric intake’. https://www.haaretz.com
• Paulgo.io. (2025, July 25). Gaza’s children are starving: Israel’s hunger war. https://paulgo.io
• GhosterySearch. (2025, July). Weaponized starvation in Gaza: A July 2025 update. https://ghosterysearch.com
• Qwant. (2025, July). Israel's food siege: Gaza on the brink. https://www.qwant.com
• Mojeek. (2025, July). Deliberate famine: A 2025 war tactic in Gaza. https://www.mojeek.com
• Reuters. (2025, July 21). Gaza faces catastrophic hunger; UN accuses Israel of obstructing aid. https://www.reuters.com
• BBC News. (2025, July 20). ‘They want us to starve’: Gaza residents on the brink. https://www.bbc.com
• Yandex. (2025, July). July 2025 Gaza food crisis timeline. https://yandex.com
• Mail.ru. (2025, July). Hunger as weapon: Israel’s siege of Gaza 2025. https://mail.ru
• Seznam.cz. (2025, July). Gaza hunger crisis map – July 2025. https://search.seznam.cz
• Startpage. (2025, July). Gaza food blockade video and testimony archive. https://www.startpage.com
• DuckDuckGo. (2025, July). Israel’s food blockade in Gaza: July 2025 global coverage digest. https://duckduckgo.com

###

Famine by Design: Israel’s Hunger Siege on Gaza
© 2025 Robert David