US demands proof that Israel does not have starvation policy in northern Gaza
The US has demanded proof on the ground that Israel does not have a policy of starvation in northern Gaza as it turned up the pressure on the Netanyahu government to allow more aid into the territory.
The US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told the security council on Wednesday at a meeting convened by France UK and Algeria that such a policy “would not just be horrific and unacceptable” but also had “implications under international and US law”, reported The Guardian.The European Union's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Thursday criticised the United States for giving its ally Israel a month to improve the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, warning that too many Palestinians could be killed during that time. "The United States has asked Israel to improve humanitarian support for Gaza, but it has given them a month to do so. A month at the current rate of death is too long," Borrell told reporters in Brussels ahead of a summit of EU leaders.
NGOs and UN experts have said that Israel has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. This summer, a coalition of human rights centers in academic institutions in the US and around the world answered the question: Is Israel Committing Genocide in Gaza? A Report from BU School of Law’s International Human Rights Clinic Lays Out Case. An “objective, methodological, and detailed analysis” conducted in part by the Boston University School of Law’s International Human Rights Clinic as part of a report from the University Network for Human Rights (UNHR), a consortium of human rights centers at colleges across the world, has released its finding.
With the US government, now raising concerns about an Israeli “Generals’ Plans” to starve the people of Gaza, the findings by the UN, NGOs, ICC Chief Prosecutor, and International Court of Justice (ICJ) raise the possibility of Western governments’ complicity in any violations of International Humanitarian Law as well as some national laws.