As Israel starves Gaza, reminders from history that weaponising food is not always effective

More than half a million Gazans are currently facing “catastrophic hunger”, according to UN agencies. Reducing access to food is being used as a weapon in Gaza by the Israeli government.

Denying food to a civilian population is a tactic that has been used in conflicts for centuries. Starvation and malnutrition provide the attacker with a number of advantages. At the tactical level the enemy is denied mobility, is unable to sustain law and order among its population as vital foodstuffs become scarce, and the will to fight diminishes. Also the physical ability to fight is likely to erode.

Weakened bodies become susceptible to disease, while fear and hopelessness are enhanced due to the body’s inability to provide the brain with required nutrients. Fighters watch their families suffering and this can create doubt and guilt in their minds.

There are similarities between Israel’s tactic and the way strategic bombing in the second world war and the allied blockade of Germany in the first world war aimed to make the civilian population unwilling to support their government’s war effort. Drastically reducing access to food is a punitive and indiscriminate attack on the morale and will of an opponent.

Restricting food reaching the people of Gaza is a strategy sometimes called deterrence by punishment. Weakening Gazans by limiting their access to food, as well as conducting bombing...

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