In 2023, the Armenian population of Artsakh/Nagorno Karabakh and the Palestinian population of Gaza were intentionally subjected to extreme deprivation of food, water, electricity, and medical supplies. In both cases, depriving entire populations was framed as a legitimate military tactic in an existential battle against terrorism. This paper will compare recent events in Artsakh/Nagorno Karabakh and Gaza, with a particular focus on the intentional stripping of entire populations of live-sustaining infrastructure. Used in the genocides in Darfur and Tigray, this strategy has a name—genocide by attrition. What is genocide by attrition? How has unplugging entire populations from life support been, to use Rob Nixon’s term, a form of lethal “slow violence” in historic and present genocidal warfare? Human Rights Lawyer Raphael Lemkin outlined this type of genocidal strategy when he described “a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.” This includes political, economic, and social institutions along with language and culture to eliminate a “national group.” While mass starvation falls under article 2c of the UN Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, The Rome Statute of the international criminal court defines starvation as a war crime when it states “intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including willfully impeding relief supplies as provided for under the Geneva conventions.” As in cases of genocide, Alex de Waal has argued that the crime of starvation must be have intentionality to be a war crime. This paper will test these legal and historical criteria in the case of Artsakh/Nagorno Karabakh and Gaza, two geographical regions with very different histories where a surprisingly similar pattern of slow violence against civilian populations has emerged.