La Via Campesina calls on the CFS to take immediate measures to fulfill its institutional mandate as Gaza faces an imminent risk of starvation

Press Release

(Bagnolet, November 22, 2023) The Committee on World Food Security (CFS) mandate is to enable UN member states to work together to combat hunger. In the autumn of 2023, we are witnessing with horror the massacre of already more than 12,000 civilians in Gaza and the use of hunger and thirst as a weapon of war by State of Israel. Faced with the blockade on all food, water and diesel imposed by the Israeli army, the Palestinian population is faced with an odious choice: leave their land or die. Moreover, in the West Bank, Israeli settlers are attacking and killing Palestinian farmers in order to extend their hold over the Palestinian territories.

Both the forced displacement of populations and the use of hunger as a weapon of war are banned by the United Nations (REF: "The Security Council recalls its resolution 2417 [2018] and its Presidential Statements of 9 August 2017 [S/PRST/2017/14] and 29 April 2020 [S/PRST/2020/6], Statement by the President of the Security Council – 3 August 2023 ). Under these conditions, the silence of the CFS Plenary on the situation in Palestine is shameful. The amendment proposed by Egypt, even if adopted, is only a modest but insufficient step to move towards effective and operational proposals to address the food situation in Gaza.

La Via Campesina, as a CFS participant, and the global peasant movement representing more than 200 million peasants and agricultural workers around the world, earnestly calls on the CFS to adopt the following resolutions:

• condemn the use of food and water as weapons of war in Gaza and in West Bank;
• urge the international community to impose International Sanctions for individuals and entities responsible for using hunger as a weapon in Palestine;
• condemn the violent attempts of eviction of Palestinian farmers and land grabbing in the West Bank by Israeli settlers;
• call for a permanent and unconditional ceasefire to enable the supply to the civilian population of Gaza and the Occupied Territories the humanitarian aid they urgently need to cope with the current dire situation and also allow them access to water, food and medical aid;
• call for specific protection to be granted to farmers and their activities in Gaza and the Occupied Territories, as they are the only possible source of food supply for the Palestinian people now and in the immediate future;
• call for the Establishment of an International Inquiry Commission under the supervision of the United Nations to investigate the use of hunger as a weapon in Gaza and the West Bank and to document and report on the violations committed against Palestinian civilians and farmers;
• call for the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Food and Agriculture Organization and other UN agencies to take an ambitious initiative to rebuild Palestinian farming sector and support Palestinian farmers to recover their productive capacity to sustainably provide food to all Palestinian people.

We call on all Governments and social movements to push for these urgent demands.