The cruelty and futility of Israel’s starvation blockade on Gaza

Immediately after Hamas’s terrorist attack of Oct. 7 that killed more than 1,200 Israelis, Israel imposed a “complete siege” on Gaza. 

“No electricity, no food, no water, no gas — it’s all closed,” as Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant put it. For weeks, supplies into Gaza were reduced to a trickle.

Although the recent cease-fire increased the number of trucks carrying aid to about 150 per day, that is a drop in the bucket compared to what is needed for Gaza’s 2.2 million people, 80 percent of whom have been displaced by Israeli airstrikes and evacuation orders. The dearth of fuel has shut down nearly 75 percent of Gaza’s hospitals. Recent reports document Palestinians’ struggle to find food and water and the unsanitary living conditions that bring on sickness, especially in children and the elderly.

The debate about the legality of Israel’s attacks, which have reportedly killed at least 20,000 Palestinian civilians, has been dominated by its airstrikes. The Israelis claim they are striking Hamas targets hidden in civilian areas (including hospitals) — rendering any civilian deaths “collateral damage.” Critics of the bombing, in contrast, contend that the Israeli air campaign violates international human law by failing to distinguish between Hamas and ordinary Palestinians and inflicting civilian casualties that are disproportionate to the military advantage gained.

The Israeli blockade, however, is a far clearer violation of international humanitarian law. The irony is that the suffering of Palestinian civilians will not achieve Israel’s aims.

Food deprivation has long been a weapon of war. In sieges — the predominant form of warfare for much of history — attackers attempted to coerce defenders to surrender by starving civilian populations. According to Michael Walzer in his classic work “Just and Unjust Wars,” civilian deaths are “expected to force the hand of the civilian or military leadership.” 

“The goal is surrender; the means is not the defeat of the enemy army, but the fearful spectacle of the civilian dead,” it reads.

Naval blockades operate according to a similar logic. During World War I, both sides sought to win the war by targeting the food supply of the enemy’s population, the Germans in the form of unrestricted submarine warfare and Britain with its surface fleet. Although Germany’s campaign failed, Britain’s blockade contributed to the deaths of some 1 million people in Germany and Austria-Hungary.

The illegality of targeting civilians, however, has not stopped belligerents — even democracies — from doing it when they wish to coerce an adversary to surrender while avoiding high casualties.

In Gaza, Israel’s stated intention is to destroy Hamas, but it also wishes to compel Hamas to release the hostages it kidnapped on Oct. 7. The blockade theoretically serves both purposes: weakening Hamas while pressuring it to free the prisoners. But no matter whether the aim is military or coercive, how Israel seeks to achieve it runs squarely through ordinary Palestinians.

Israel’s blockade of Gaza is thus clearly illegal. Civilians do not lose their immunity from direct or indiscriminate attack merely for sharing a common identity with a militant group or even from supporting its cause — however odious it might be. Immunity is only forfeited by directly participating in hostilities, which the vast majority of Palestinians are not doing.

But the Israeli siege is also illogical and unlikely to be effective in achieving either of Israel’s goals. Few starvation blockades historically have achieved decisive results. 

The British blockade of the Central Powers, although it inflicted “widespread dearth and ruin,” contributed little if anything to victory. More recently, the separatist region of Biafra fought to the bitter end in its war to secede from Nigeria despite 1-2 million civilian deaths from blockade. Similarly, the Saudi blockade of Yemen, in effect since 2015, has contributed to a massive humanitarian disaster in the country but has done nothing to persuade Houthi leaders to surrender. And recent evidence suggests that sieges in civil wars and other asymmetric conflicts have failed.

The logic of coercion by punishment is that by inflicting pain on the population, an attacker can compel an adversary to concede. This logic assumes that the population can influence the government’s decision. This is obviously not the case in Gaza — and it is questionable whether it applies to any authoritarian regime. 

How exactly are Palestinian civilians supposed to persuade Hamas to surrender? Especially when they are dodging airstrikes, pulling victims out of collapsed buildings and searching for food and water? Similarly, the odds that Hamas, distraught by the horrors suffered by the population, will have a change of heart and surrender to Israel are vanishingly small. The only way to eliminate Hamas is to seek it out and destroy it with ground forces. Even that may be beyond Israel’s reach.

Similarly, the suffering of Palestinian civilians did not play a role in causing the recent truce and Hamas’s decision to release hostages. Hamas, after all, got something in return: a respite from the Israel Defense Forces’ offensive and three Palestinian hostages released for every one it let go. 

On the contrary, public pressure in Israel compelled the Netanyahu government to reverse its strategic priorities and pursue the release of the hostages. The Israeli ground offensive is what most threatens Hamas, and any concessions the group makes will come in response to that threat. Of course, given that Israel also seeks its destruction, meaningful concessions by Hamas are likely to be few.

Seeking victory by starving Palestinians in Gaza is not only a crime, it’s a blunder.

Alexander B. Downes is a professor of Political Science and International Affairs and director of the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at The George Washington University.