Gaza is being starved and bombed again. Why are we allowing it?

Sister, the situation in my family is very challenging. I couldn’t afford food. Everything is pricey here. Ramez, a 17-year-old boy from Gaza, sent these words to me on March 15. “I don’t have anything to eat tomorrow. I’m at a loss for ideas. Hazard has returned.

Three days later, just before suhoor, the last meal before the daily fast begins during the holy month of Ramadan, Israel unleashed a huge campaign of bombardment, killing more than 430 Palestinians, including more than 180 children.

Ramez sent me a message the following day that read, “Only God knows what we are going through.” We left without bringing anything with us, and we are now on the street. The situation is extremely bad. We didn’t anticipate it, and everything just happened suddenly. In front of us, a massacre took place, and they asked us to leave under the shelling.

Last year, Ramez had reached out to me on Instagram, a platform that has become a lifeline for countless people in Gaza calling out to the world for help. I have no historical connection to Gaza or am close to Ramez’s family. However, his message was discovered among the millions of Instagram accounts.

In the following months, his messages became a window into the daily suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza. Ramez was able to return to his home after the ceasefire, which provided a temporary respite from the bombing. Then, on the second day of Ramadan, Israel stopped providing aid, causing another hunger. On the 18th day of the holy month, it renewed its mass slaughter.

I think of all the Palestinian families who, in Berlin, have no food on their iftar tables and don’t hear Israeli bombings during prayer.

Can’t this be true life, can it? Humans, just a few thousand kilometres away, are literally starving and dying under bombs. And yet, in the middle of the West, which professes principles of democracy and freedom but directly contributes to Gaza’s widespread murder.

As a German citizen, my taxes are paid to a government that supports Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinians in full. The thought of it makes me feel horrified.

In Gaza, there is hunger and genocide.

Ramez has a habit of writing occasionally. I have hesitated to ask him for more detail, unable to bear the suffering he and his family face daily.

I am aware of times when he only consumed pita bread and a few falafel balls.

His goals are to finish high school and pursue accounting studies. Instead, day after day, he is forced to reach out to Instagram users, asking them to donate and share his fundraising link.

Before the war, his father suffered injuries and now suffers constant pain and requires a shoulder replacement. Ramez is now in charge of the family.

Ramez has two brothers, aged 15 and 14, and three sisters, aged 20, 12, and 8. His mother is a housewife, while his father is an electrical and water mechanic.

A few weeks after the ceasefire was announced, Ramez wrote that “Gaza continues to be under destruction and hunger.” His family’s situation was still dire. Although some humanitarian organizations gave them food, it was insufficient to meet their needs.

In a region where Israeli bombardment had destroyed civilian infrastructure and buildings, they had returned to their homes in southern Gaza.

Ramez had to travel long distances to reach a humanitarian distribution centre – often, the transportation costs were higher than the value of the aid he received.

His family couldn’t always afford commercial goods, despite the fact that they were readily available in the market. They only get paid with the sporadic donations that strangers on Instagram make, so they are completely unemployed.

After Israel blocked all aid into Gaza, food prices skyrocketed. Due to a lack of supplies, humanitarian aid has decreased, and food banks and soup kitchens have closed. Has anyone been helping Ramez’s family in a few weeks?

Now there is only canned food and some vegetables in the market, he told me. I am unable to provide anything. Because of the high prices, I need about $100 per day for food.

On March 15, almost two weeks into Israel’s full blockade on Gaza, UNICEF reported that malnutrition rates of children under the age of 2 in northern Gaza have risen from 15.6 percent in January to 31 percent at present, 23 children had died of malnutrition and dehydration in the span of a few weeks.

The pace at which this catastrophic child malnutrition crisis is unfolding in Gaza is “shocking,” according to Catherine Russell, UNICEF executive director.

Malnutrition can affect a child’s ability to develop noncommunicable diseases and their immune system function for the long run. Furthermore, malnutrition-induced developmental delays can lead to irreversible deficits in cognitive and motor abilities, an elevated risk of behavioural challenges, and substantially diminished educational outcomes.

In other words, the next generation is being destroyed by Israel starving children in Gaza right now.

focusing on war crimes

In November, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. In Gaza, it accused the two of intentionally starving civilians, among other crimes.

Western nations have readily declared that they will host Netanyahu and that they will uphold international law. Among them are Hungary, Italy, Poland, and Germany.

The Israeli prime minister will be able to travel to Germany without a problem, according to Friedrich Merz, who is expected to become the next German chancellor. I’ll look for ways to get that to happen.

These declarations have signalled that the West had no intention of holding Israeli leaders to account for their crimes. Unsurprisingly, Netanyahu decided to continue the genocidal starvation and indiscriminate bombardment in Gaza after facing no consequences for his ICC arrest warrant.

Germany, France, and the UK issued a joint statement stating that “a halt on goods and supplies entering Gaza… would risk violating international humanitarian law.”

This response, which refuses to call a crime a crime – was utterly shameful. His own government rebuked him on March 17 when British Foreign Secretary David Lammy found the courage to point out the obvious: that Israel is indeed violating international law by blocking Gaza aid.

What is illegal if deliberately starving and bombing a civilian population is? Western governments ‘ attempt to downplay and conceal Israeli crimes before the public is clear evidence of their complicity in these same crimes.

International law requires governments in Western countries to take action to stop serious violations. They ought to be putting pressure on Israel diplomatically, enforcing trade and cooperation, and imposing arms embargoes. But they are not.

Western mainstream media has also been ignoring Palestinian suffering or worse, misleading the general public about it, rather than blatantly highlighting Western governments’ complicity and failure to intervene and stop a genocide. After Israel stopped providing aid, starvation in Gaza did not even make headlines. The shocking massacre on March 18 did, but it was all neatly packaged with Israel’s justification of it.

Israeli officials’ genocidal declarations are frequently ignored or downplayed by the media. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz recently vowed to the Palestinians in Gaza that they would face “complete destruction and devastation” if Hamas was not expelled and the Israelis were held hostage. This threat of genocide was reported as a “warning” and it evoked no reaction from Israel’s Western allies, except a weak condemnation from Lammy.

It has been exhausting to watch this program of empty talk, complicity, betrayal, and gaslighting for 17 months. It is a destructive narcissistic display of power intended to oppress those of us who oppose the return to normal genocide.

But I’ve reached a point where I refuse to feel powerless and exhausted any more in the face of this overwhelming injustice.

The strength of faith is supposed to be renewed during the Ramadan. It’s a time of sacrifice, joy, community, and personal development, but it’s also a time of celebration. I won’t allow Israel and its allies to sabotage my belief in justice. We have been taught by the people of Gaza how to remain steadfast and hold on to our faith no matter what.

I’ll always be convinced that, no matter how small, our voices and actions can influence change. We must not stop raising awareness and pressuring our governments to take action. Our mutual strength comes from our continuing commitment to justice and continuing to fight for it.

Source: Aljazeera