Israel’s food points are not just death traps – they’re an alibi for the starvation of Gaza

July 26, 2025

Alex de Waal

When mass starvation grips a community, something rare and terrible occurs. Starvation is not only the biological phenomenon of the body wasting away. It’s also the death rattle of society. Famine is the sight of people scavenging for food in a garbage heap. It’s a woman cooking in secret, hiding food from her starving cousins. It’s a family selling its grandmother’s jewellery for a single meal, their faces blank and emotionless, their eyes glazed. This is the degradation, the humiliation, the shame – and, yes, the dehumanisation – that happens when human beings scrabble for food like animals.

Palestinians at a charity kitchen in the Mawasi area of Khan Younis, Gaza, 22 July 2025.  Photograph: AFP/Getty Images