The world need to act now, writes Stephen McCloskey ; Bernie Evans calls on Labour to force an emergency debate

Re your editorial ( The Guardian view on Israel’s aid blockade of Gaza: hunger as a weapon of war, 4 May ), what we are witnessing in Gaza is the collective punishment of a civilian population, mostly refugees, who were already living in highly vulnerable conditions following 18 months of what the international court of justice found to be a plausible risk of genocide and 18 years of an Israeli blockade.

That blockade has been tightened further for the past two months, during which hunger has been weaponised, with the apparent aim of ethnically cleansing Gaza. The author Omar El Akkad describes the term “genocide” as a “mechanic of forewarning”, not some “after‑the-fact resolution”. The world should consider itself warned that the genocide in Gaza has entered a new phase of mass starvation with hunger, thirst and disease stalking 2 million people.