On Tuesday morning, Israeli soldiers fired at crowds of Palestinians as they tried to approach a food distribution site in the south of Gaza, according to the Israeli military. At least 27 people were killed in the shooting, the Gaza Health Ministry and Red Cross reported.
Two days earlier, witnesses who spoke with NBC News said the Israeli military fired on people in Gaza as they attempted to reach an aid hub on Sunday. A reported 31 people were killed, according to a Gaza hospital director. Israel has denied responsibility for the deaths. Both events follow the rollout of a new aid plan that relies on Israeli and U.S.-backed private aid organizations, and which has been criticized by the U.N. and the international humanitarian community for violating international standards of neutrality. On Friday, the U.S. Boston Consulting Group withdrew involvement and ground operations from the project amidst ongoing criticism.
The deliberate withholding of food from a civilian population is not a tactic. It’s not “collateral damage.” It’s cruelty.
The deliberate withholding of food from a civilian population is not a tactic. It’s not “collateral damage.” It’s cruelty. And when used as a tool of war, under international law, it becomes a crime.
What we are witnessing in Gaza is not merely a humanitarian crisis. It is a man-made catastrophe, a siege that amounts to the forced starvation of over 2 million Palestinians, and it is a moral failure of the West’s conscience.
I’ve seen firsthand what a siege looks like. I was living in Gaza as a journalist in 2007 when, in response to Hamas winning elections the year before, Israel imposed its initial blockade on the entire territory. And I saw the siege’s brutal toll.
I know what desperation does to people, what it means when children cry not because they’re afraid of bombs, but because their stomachs are empty. I’ve seen the despair and the grief on a father’s face when he can’t find medicines to save his sick children.
But Gaza in 2025 represents something even more dire and more sinister: the systematic targeting of the very essentials of life in advance of a policy not to punish Palestinians but, as aid groups have warned, to advance Israel’s policy of ethnic cleansing.
What’s happening in Gaza is a crime that’s been building for years; one that exposes that starvation, deprivation and collective punishment have long been part of Israel’s policy toward Palestinians.
What we’re seeing today is simply the most brutal, most public and most lethal phase of a system that has existed for nearly two decades.
Let’s start with the facts: In 2007, after Hamas won elections and took control of Gaza, Israel, along with Egypt, imposed a blockade on the entire territory. What followed wasn’t just economic isolation.
That year, the Israeli government commissioned a now-infamous document known as the “red lines” report.
It was a deliberate strategy of controlled deprivation. Israeli officials didn’t just seal the borders, they calculated how many calories Palestinians in Gaza would need to avoid malnutrition, and then restricted food imports to match. Trucks carrying lentils, pasta and powdered milk were sometimes turned away. Not because of security concerns — but because those items were not considered essential.
That’s not a conspiracy theory. It’s documented policy. Dov Weiglass, an adviser to then-Israeli PM Ehud Olmert, once even bragged that the goal was to “put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.”
Gaza’s economy collapsed. Its water became undrinkable. Electricity came and went, often only available for a few hours a day. Hospitals barely functioned. Aid groups called it an “open-air prison.” And yet the world kept looking away.
The Israeli government policy in 2007 was to keep Gaza’s population on the edge of survival. Today that policy is to eradicate them, more and more genocide scholars and aid groups are concluding. The forced starvation and the establishment of new aid mechanisms to drip-feed Gaza is not about denying Hamas a lifeline. Cindy McCain, the wife of the late Sen. John McCain and the head of the United Nations World Food Programme, has rejected Israel’s propaganda that Hamas is stealing aid. And, yet, much of the world continues to look on in silence. Western capitals issue statements about “concern,” but continue to send Israel weapons while shielding it from sanctions. U.S. officials talk about the need for “proportionate responses” while turning a blind eye to Gaza’s suffering. What does it say about our global conscience when starvation can be used as a policy in full view of the international community? In any other context — any other country — this would be a scandal of unimaginable proportions. But when it comes to Palestinians, because the West is complicit, it gives Israel a free pass, and Palestinians pay the price. What does it say about our global conscience when starvation can be used as a policy in full view of the international community? What does it say about the future of international law when its violations carry no consequences? To truly understand what’s at stake, we must stop viewing this as a distant crisis merely fixed by “surging aid.” Yes, such a surge of aide is needed immediately to end Israel’s genocide. But what’s happening in Gaza is a test of whether international norms still matter; of whether we, as a global community, are willing to uphold the basic tenets of humanity. It’s about whether we accept that every child, regardless of nationality, has the right to food, water and safety. History will undoubtedly remember this moment. The question is: Will we be remembered as silent witnesses to starvation or as voices that refused to let it be normalized? The war must end. The blockade must be lifted. Aid must flow. And accountability must follow. UPDATE: (June. 4, 2025, 12:34 p.m. ET): This piece has been updated to include Israel’s denial of responsibility for the deaths of 31 Palestinians in Gaza on Sunday.
Ayman Mohyeldin is a host of "‘The Weekend: Primetime" and an MS NOW political analyst. 
