A recent BBC investigation reveals a fact that, were it not for its gravity, could be mistaken for macabre satire, the food distribution centers in Gaza are being "secured" by members of the Infidels Motorcycle Club, a group of American bikers known for their Islamophobic, supremacist rhetoric and for self-defining themselves as modern crusaders.

That the safety of the hungry and Muslim population falls on individuals who have made mockery of Islam a recurring practice, such as the famous pork grills organized during Ramadan, can only be read as the institutionalization of humiliation.

Beyond the grotesque, the fact fits into a much more serious pattern, the use of hunger as a method of warfare. Article 54 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions clearly states:

"It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove, or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as food, agricultural areas [...] with the specific intent of depriving the civilian population of them as a means of warfare."

The militarization of aid points and the systematic blocking of food are, in this regard, a direct violation of international humanitarian law.

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court leaves no room for ambiguities. Article 8, which defines war crimes, expressly includes as such:

"Mocking civilians by starving them as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including the deliberate obstruction of relief supplies."

The situation described by the BBC fits disturbingly precisely in this definition, food becomes not a right, but an instrument of control, where access to a flour bag is mediated by rifles and guarded by individuals with a history of cultural and religious hatred.

What is presented under the guise of humanitarian aid becomes, in practice, a collective submission device. The act of receiving food, which should be an expression of solidarity and humanitarian neutrality, is transformed into a ritual of humiliation watched by actors whose identity is built in the denial, contempt and ridicule of the other. This is not a logistical error or an unfortunate accident, it is a structural design of degradation.

In this context, talking about the humanitarian crisis is insufficient and even misleading. The word crisis suggests an accidental phenomenon, an exceptional event. What is happening in Gaza is neither accidental nor exceptional, deliberate, systematic and organized. It is hunger administered as a State policy, legitimized through the militarization of assistance and executed with surgical precision.

The BBC's research exposes an uncomfortable reality for the international community, as condemnation speeches multiply, tolerated and in some cases financed, a practice that directly violates the pillars of international humanitarian law. And most outrageously, all this is presented as "aid".

In Gaza, the bread is not delivered... it shoots. Hunger is not a consequence, it is strategy. And the right to life, protected in all international regulatory frameworks, is negotiated under the shadow of rifles and the sarcastic grin of those who should guarantee it.

Translation by Deepl.com

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