<\/p>\n
30 July 2025<\/p>\n
The Special Rapporteur on torture, Alice Jill Edwards, today expressed deep concern about the growing number of starvation-related deaths among Palestinians in Gaza and joined calls for rapid, unimpeded, impartial and safe aid delivery.<\/p>\n
\u201cDepriving people of food, water and dignity has been a serious and recurring violation of this war, and it must end. The risk of all-out famine must be averted,\u201d Edwards said, amid shocking reports of Palestinians being killed while queuing for food and widespread hunger and malnutrition.<\/p>\n
The Special Rapporteur stressed that parties to this conflict have obligations to provide adequate food and water to those in their custody or control, permit access to, or provide, humanitarian assistance to besieged populations, and must not steal, divert, or wilfully impede the distribution of aid.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe catastrophic physiological consequences of depriving people of necessary daily calories over time \u2013 including hunger, weight loss, malnutrition, dizziness, hallucinations, reproductive damage, organ failure and death \u2013 are foreseeable and preventable,\u201d the expert said. \u201cThese consequences are particularly acute among vulnerable groups, including infants, and pregnant or lactating mothers.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe psychological impact of being deprived of food and water is inherently cruel,\u201d Edwards added. \u201cConstantly changing rules, militarised distributions, and daily and hourly uncertainty about when one is going to access these basic necessities is causing utter despair, stress, and trauma.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one should have to suffer the humiliation of being forced to beg for food, and especially not when there are ample supplies waiting to be provided,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The Special Rapporteur welcomed Israel\u2019s latest announcement of humanitarian pauses to permit the World Food Programme to deliver aid to Gaza\u2019s 2.1 million people that would reportedly last for three months, but stressed that more must be done to end hostilities, and establish peace and security based on a two-state solution.<\/p>\n
The expert has raised these concerns and other allegations of torture and ill-treatment with the parties to the conflict on multiple occasions, and continues to urge the unconditional and immediate release of all hostages, the release of all arbitrarily detained Palestinians, and for independent investigations into all alleged crimes.<\/p>\n
Alice Jill Edwards<\/strong>\u00a0is the\u00a0Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 30 July 2025 The Special Rapporteur on torture, Alice Jill Edwards, today expressed deep concern about the growing number of starvation-related deaths among Palestinians in Gaza and joined calls for rapid, unimpeded, impartial and safe aid delivery. \u201cDepriving people of food, water and dignity has been a serious and recurring violation of this war, […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"country":[],"document-category":[1329,1338],"document-source":[1825,5847],"committee-meeting":[],"document-subject":[2517,2057,2005,5200,6870,2673],"entity":[1729],"document-language":[6542],"class_list":["post-309803","document","type-document","status-publish","hentry","document-category-press-release","document-category-statement","document-source-office-of-the-united-nations-high-commissioner-for-human-rights-ohchr","document-source-special-rapporteur-on-torture-and-other-cruel-inhuman-and-degrading-treatment-or-punishment","document-subject-access-and-movement","document-subject-food","document-subject-gaza-strip","document-subject-humanitarian-relief","document-subject-hunger","document-subject-torture","entity-united-nations-system","document-language-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/309803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/document"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/309803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":309806,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/309803\/revisions\/309806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=309803"},{"taxonomy":"document-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-category?post=309803"},{"taxonomy":"document-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-source?post=309803"},{"taxonomy":"committee-meeting","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/committee-meeting?post=309803"},{"taxonomy":"document-subject","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-subject?post=309803"},{"taxonomy":"entity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entity?post=309803"},{"taxonomy":"document-language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-language?post=309803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}