New York — Fourteen members of the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday denounced the famine in Gaza as a “man-made crisis,” a damning charge that directly implicated Israel’s blockade and military assaults in what humanitarian agencies call a crime against humanity and part of the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. The United States, standing alone, refused to endorse the declaration, once again shielding Israel from global accountability.
According to international monitors, more than 514,000 Palestinians are already enduring famine, with projections showing that figure could surpass 641,000 by the end of September. Aid organizations stress that this catastrophe is not the product of a natural disaster, but the deliberate outcome of Israel’s scorched-earth tactics, bombing aid warehouses, blocking convoys at Rafah, and targeting Gaza’s already devastated agricultural lands.
This is the first formal famine declaration outside Africa in modern history, a milestone that exposes the unprecedented scale of devastation caused by Israel’s campaign.
Diplomats at the council said Israel has turned food into a weapon, in violation of international law that bans the use of starvation against civilians. Several envoys described the images emerging from Gaza, skeletal children in hospitals, families eating grass and animal feed, as “evidence of systematic cruelty designed to break an entire population.”
The statement demanded a permanent ceasefire, the release of hostages, and the lifting of every restriction that prevents aid deliveries to Palestinians.
The United States rejected the findings, with Ambassador Dorothy Shea claiming the famine data “does not pass the test.” Israel likewise dismissed the report as “Hamas propaganda,” though it offered no credible evidence to refute the overwhelming documentation from international agencies and aid workers on the ground.
Rights groups accused Washington of enabling war crimes by protecting Israel diplomatically even as its military continues to starve civilians. Analysts said the spectacle of the United States standing alone only deepened the perception of America as complicit in Gaza’s destruction.
Aid workers say the famine is part of a wider strategy: targeting hospitals, media offices, water infrastructure, and farmland to render Gaza uninhabitable. With food trucks blocked and humanitarian corridors closed, Palestinians have been left to starve in plain view of the world.
“This is not just a famine, it is an engineered act of genocide,” one senior diplomat said privately, warning that unless Israel is forced to reverse course, Gaza could become a graveyard for an entire generation.
According to Reuters and the Associated Press, the Security Council’s rebuke left Israel’s defenders isolated, with the overwhelming majority of the world demanding immediate accountability for a famine that has been manufactured through military policy, not misfortune.
