The Washington Center for Human Rights (WCHR) unequivocally condemns the continued complete siege of the Gaza Strip by Israel as a cynical act of genocide and an unlawful collective punishment. Two months following Israel’s restoration of a prohibition on humanitarian and commercial items on March 2, 2025, WCHR joins Amnesty International in asserting that the implementation of starvation as a weapon amounts to a war crime under the laws of armed conflict.
Israel’s deliberate policy of withholding food, water, medicine, and electricity from over two million Palestinians in Gaza has destroyed civilian life. Israel has completely shut down the entry of vital aid since March, intentionally setting conditions to annihilate Gaza’s population. Terrifying accounts show a humanitarian disaster: food prices soaring, water shortages, medical breakdown, and civilians resorting to burning toxic materials for cooking. Gaza has become effectively uninhabitable.
The International Court of Justice has consistently directed Israel to open the door to humanitarian access, yet Israel’s obstinacy has no bounds. In April, public hearings at The Hague focused on Israel’s blocking of UN and humanitarian organizations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, further underlining its indifference to international duties.
WCHR appeals to the international community, especially Israel’s friends, to take immediate and tangible actions:
- Call on Israel to end its blanket siege and permit the unrestricted entry and distribution of humanitarian relief in Gaza.
- Impose an all-encompassing arms embargo against Israel.
- Fully endorse investigations by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of abuses of international humanitarian law.
- Bring an end to the political, economic, and military entanglement that has facilitated Israel’s impunity.
WCHR denounces also any weaponization and exploitation of humanitarian aid and urges its equal and impartial distribution under the UN agencies’ control. WCHR joins the Palestinian people in full solidarity and urges all global powers to act now—before yet another life is lost to Israel’s siege-constructed genocide in Gaza.