play videoplay video

Video duration 02 minutes 08 seconds 02:08

In light of the widespread famine in the Gaza Strip due to Israel's closure of humanitarian aid crossings and its targeting of food stores and production facilities, questions are being raised about international conventions and laws that protect the right to food and the right of every individual to access it, especially during armed conflicts.

International organizations consider the right to food to be a human right in their early charters, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 recognized the right to food as a basic human right.

In 1966, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights guaranteed the right to be free from hunger, so this treaty is considered more comprehensively concerned with the right to food than any other instrument.

According to a report broadcast by Al Jazeera, the terms of reference for implementing the right to food obligated states parties to take the necessary measures to provide food and mitigate the impact of hunger, especially in emergency and exceptional circumstances.

In this context, international instruments obligate countries to secure food and ensure its sustainability for the individual, to provide him with all means of obtaining it, and to make safe food available to all groups without exception or discrimination.

Many provisions of international humanitarian law relate to the provision of food in situations of armed conflict, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

According to this law, starvation of civilians as a means of war or combat during international and non-international armed conflicts is prohibited.

This prohibition is also violated when populations go hungry as a result of deprivation of food sources and supplies.

In the same context, parties to conflicts must distinguish between civilian targets and military targets, and civilian targets include foodstuffs and areas or facilities for their production.

International humanitarian law also recognizes the necessity of providing humanitarian assistance by humanitarian organizations, while a party to the conflict may not withhold its consent to such a service, but rather must facilitate the rapid passage of humanitarian relief without obstacles.

Source: Al Jazeera