A recent Israeli study has concluded that starvation in Gaza resulted from a premeditated policy, despite sustained public denial by the Israeli government and much of the media. Titled Data for Denial: The Smokescreen Behind the Starvation of Gaza, the study was published last month by the Forum for Regional Thinking at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute.
Its author, Shmuel Lederman, an Israeli scholar specializing in genocide studies, told Middle East Eye that he was motivated by what he described as widespread denial within Israel over starvation in Gaza during the two-year genocide that began in October 2023. “There is a thirst for denial,” Lederman said, with many in Israel seeking to portray the army’s conduct in Gaza and elsewhere as entirely justified or unproblematic.
The study documents how restrictions on aid, fuel, and cooking gas, alongside the destruction of key infrastructure such as bakeries, and disruption of humanitarian operations, severely limited Palestinians’ access to food. It concludes that the starvation in Gaza resulted from “deliberate planning, experimentation, and manoeuvring around the humanitarian ‘red line’,” aimed in part at managing international pressure on Israel during the war.
According to MEE, Lederman’s study argues that the Israeli government pursued a clear strategic objective. It claims that starvation tactics were used to pressure Palestinians to move southwards, and ultimately towards third countries, in line with a “voluntary emigration” plan that has been echoed by both the Israeli government and U.S. President Donald Trump—including an instance by Defense Minister Israel Katz last week.
The establishment of the U.S.- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) is cited in the report as evidence of this approach. “Severe food deprivation in Gaza that would compel Gazans to travel to aid distribution centres was not a ‘mistake’,” the report states, “it was part of the plan.”
The Gaza Strip, Lederman’s report argues, was used by Israel as a kind of laboratory, with implications that extend far beyond the territory itself. “Over the past two and a half years, Gaza has served to a large extent as a testing laboratory not only for methods of warfare, but also for the architecture of starvation and the management of a population through deprivation,” the report states. According to the study, Israelis, Palestinians, and the international community will continue to grapple for years with the implications of Israel’s starvation campaign in Gaza, particularly in relation to international law and the global order.
Throughout the report, Lederman emphasizes the role of the United States under both the Biden and Trump administrations, as well as other Western governments, in enabling Israel’s conduct, arguing that they share responsibility for sustaining the policy. “All of this will not remain confined to Gaza,” Lederman told MEE, warning that Israel’s actions “will spread to other places around the world,” as other states or actors may adopt similar methods of warfare.
“What Israel did in Gaza will not stay there, it already has not remained there,” Lederman said. “Therefore, this is not only a struggle against what Israel did to the Palestinians in Gaza, but a global struggle against these kinds of actions.”
