Food Is a Right, Not a Weapon: Canada Must Act for Gaza
Alex Neve and Dorotea Gucciardo*
On July 21, Canada joined 24 other countries and the European Union in a joint statement with a remarkably clear message: “the war in Gaza must end now.” Among many concerns, the signatories unequivocally criticize Israel’s obstruction of humanitarian aid in Gaza. They insist that restrictions on the flow of aid be lifted “immediately” and call out the Israeli government’s approach to aid delivery for what it is: dangerous and a source of instability. They powerfully condemn the “drip feeding of aid” and note that it “deprives Gazans of human dignity.”
The statement acknowledged what Palestinian organizations, UN agencies, and human rights experts have been documenting for months: Palestinians are being starved by deliberate political design.
Since March, Israel’s total siege on Gaza has blocked Palestinians from importing or growing food. As well, Israeli forces have razed all Palestinian agricultural lands in Gaza, eliminating important projects that made Gaza “largely self-sufficient in producing vegetables, dairy, poultry and fish”. After making Palestinians in Gaza wholly dependent on recognized humanitarian actors like the UN, Israel began sustained and severe attacks against aid organizations such as the UN Relief and Works Agency, killing at least 408 aid workers (including more than 280 UNRWA staff.)
Most recently, Israel has put aid delivery in the hands of the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) — an Israeli-run, U.S.-backed operation that has become a façade for staggering levels of death. Desperateto access life-sustaining necessities, Palestinians arrive at GHF distribution points where they are attacked by Israeli tanks, drones, snipers, and machine gun fire. The Palestinian Ministry of Health reports that to date, over 1000 Palestinians (men, women, and children) have been killed, over 6,000 injured, and 45 remain missing, all because they were lured to aid sites which they assumed would be safe.
It is beyond unconscionable. One’s heart shatters thinking of the cruel and painful consequences for the children of Gaza who go without food and whose parents are killed when they set out to try to feed them. When starvation advances, which it does now with vicious and debilitating certainty across the entire Gaza Strip, it does not discern among its victims. The UN has raised the alarm that its aid workers are starving and four major global news organizations have expressed concern that their journalists based in Gaza also risk starvation.
It is impossible to fathom how any state could deliberately embark on conduct of this nature.
International law, however, recognizes that despicable acts of this nature are possible and do happen, even though they are the essence of inhumanity. Starvation as a tactic of war, as a means of punishing a civilian population, or as a strategy to destroy a people, is therefore unconditionally prohibited under binding treaties such as the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in the Time of War, and as a matter of well-established customary international law.
Using starvation to punish and destroy constitutes genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity That is why the International Court of Justice has ordered Israel to “take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.” Eighteen months on, that has been brazenly flouted by Israel.
Which brings us back to the statement from Canada and allies. It goes beyond decrying the situation on the ground. States declare that they “are prepared to take further action to support an immediate ceasefire and a political pathway to security and peace for Israelis, Palestinians and the entire region.”
Does the prospect of “further action” represent an encouraging turning point? We hope so. But we have been here before.
Two months ago, on May 19th, Prime Minister Mark Carney joined with French President Emmanuel Macron and United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer in declaring that “the level of human suffering in Gaza is intolerable.” The three leaders made it clear that if Israel did not “lift its restrictions on humanitarian aid” they would “take further concrete actions in response.” Restrictions were not lifted. Further concrete actions were not taken. Instead, starvation and the dystopian spectacle of people being killed while queuing for food, deepened without consequence of any kind.
This time there must be action, immediately. Already, four more days have passed. All we have heard from the Prime Minister is more words: a confirmation of the obvious, that Israel’s denial of humanitarian aid is a violation of international law. We need action. For Canada that starts with a full arms embargo, cancelling our free trade deal with Israel, imposing biting sanctions on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli political and military leaders, and actively pursuing criminal prosecutions for those who have blatantly orchestrated this campaign of death.
Our legal, political and moral credibility hangs in the balance. Prime Minister Carney cannot wait a single moment more to act.
*Alex Neve is a professor of international human rights law at the University of Ottawa; Dorotea Gucciardo is director of development for Glia, a Canadian medical solidarity organization with operations in the Gaza Strip since 2012. This was originally published as an opinion piece in the Hill Times, on July 25, 2025.
