GENEVA - The Special Rapporteur on torture, Alice Jill Edwards, today expressed deep concern about the growing number of starvation-related deaths among Palestinians in Gaza and joined calls for rapid, unimpeded, impartial and safe aid delivery.
"Depriving people of food, water and dignity has been a serious and recurring violation of this war, and it must end. The risk of all-out famine must be averted," Edwards said, amid shocking reports of Palestinians being killed while queuing for food and widespread hunger and malnutrition.
The Special Rapporteur stressed that parties to this conflict have obligations to provide adequate food and water to those in their custody or control, permit access to, or provide, humanitarian assistance to besieged populations, and must not steal, divert, or wilfully impede the distribution of aid.
"The catastrophic physiological consequences of depriving people of necessary daily calories over time - including hunger, weight loss, malnutrition, dizziness, hallucinations, reproductive damage, organ failure and death - are foreseeable and preventable," the expert said. "These consequences are particularly acute among vulnerable groups, including infants, and pregnant or lactating mothers."
"The psychological impact of being deprived of food and water is inherently cruel," Edwards added. "Constantly changing rules, militarised distributions, and daily and hourly uncertainty about when one is going to access these basic necessities is causing utter despair, stress, and trauma."
"No one should have to suffer the humiliation of being forced to beg for food, and especially not when there are ample supplies waiting to be provided," she said.
The Special Rapporteur welcomed Israel's latest announcement of humanitarian pauses to permit the World Food Programme to deliver aid to Gaza's 2.1 million people that would reportedly last for three months, but stressed that more must be done to end hostilities, and establish peace and security based on a two-state solution.
The expert has raised these concerns and other allegations of torture and ill-treatment with the parties to the conflict on multiple occasions, and continues to urge the unconditional and immediate release of all hostages, the release of all arbitrarily detained Palestinians, and for independent investigations into all alleged crimes.
