This article examines how the Israeli government engineered humanitarianism in Gaza since the 2005 withdrawal, transforming it into a biopolitical regime of containment and an instrument of war. Drawing on the work of Eyal Weizman and Michel Agier, the article argues that the resulting matrix of control set the stage for starvation crimes to become a modality of genocide. It becomes clear that Israel’s humanitarian management functioned as an occupation strategy that sustained basic survival while systematically obstructing economic development, deliberately producing a state of precarity. After October 7, 2023, this infrastructure of deprivation was compounded by humanitarian gaslighting, namely the state’s discursive practice of asserting legality and benevolence, while actively perpetrating starvation crimes, a rhetorical move that not only deflects responsibility but also risks enabling impunity. While the prewar carceral system alone may not constitute genocide, its intentional design to create a systematically weakened population made it essential to the broader logic of mass atrocity. These conditions, the article shows, align with Helen Fein’s concept of genocide by attrition, gradual destruction through sustained deprivation. Recognizing starvation crimes as a central component of this modality and reassessing humanitarianism’s potential role in perpetuating structural violence, the article argues, is critical in setting important legal precedents and holding perpetrators accountable for using starvation as a tool of genocide at the International Court of Justice.