Rabat – Hashtags, posts, and videos of people in Gaza starving and desperate for a piece of bread have been going viral for days, months, and years.
Yet, the international community continues to fail to shoulder its responsibility when it comes to ending the Israeli genocidal war against the Palestinian people.
As constant Israeli assaults further deepen their plight, Palestinians have seen their dreams and hopes shattered as their most inalienable rights – including the freedom of movement and the right to food and a safe home – are recklessly trampled upon by Israel while the world either looks away or issues toothless condemnations and inconclusive calls for a ceasefire.
It has been decades since social media and television buzzed about news of famine in Gaza, with Palestinians being relentlessly attacked, forcibly displaced or and unsurprisingly killed by Israeli war machines.
Time repeats itself as do the scenarios, with claims of ongoing dialogues to end the ordeal faced by millions of Palestinians, either those at home or others displaced or refugees across the world.
Today, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA, repeated its multi-million-dollar appeals, warning that Israel is “starving civilians.”
This includes one million children or more amid an ongoing blockade and a siege on crucial aid deliveries into the region.
Online, videos continue to go viral of hopelessly vulnerable Gazans, including children, with weak and pale faces, in a crowded queue begging for a piece of bread, a soup, a thing – a small thing to either put on their face or run with to feed their families, including the elderly, babies, or even pets.
Over the past weeks, there have been waves of reports of people dying from malnutrition in an era where countries race to use AI in medical fields, where countries invest billions of dollars in non-priorities like games, movies, festivals, and so on.
Al Jazeera correspondent Hind Khoudary reported today on the death of a 35-day-old baby in Gaza and a four-month-old child in Deir el-Balah due to malnutrition at al-Aqsa hospital.
“I am sorry I could not feed you. I had no other option than to see you dying in front of my eyes,” Hind Khoudary recalls the baby’s devastated mother as saying.
UNRWA recorded that, as of this past July 13, nearly 900 deaths of hungry Gazans as they were trying to collect food.
And the death toll of Palestinians killed in the ongoing 21-month-long genocidal war exceeded 58,000, while thousands of others were wounded.
“Our Gaza teams started sending alarming photos of emaciated babies. The rates of malnutrition are rapidly increasing, spreading across the Gaza Strip,” the UN said, noting that more than 50 children have died of malnutrition since the siege began on March 2.
One in 10 children in Gaza is screened as malnourished.
Starvation to force surrender
Starvation has become another tool in the Israeli war machine’s toolkit. In addition to guns, rifles, drones, and missiles, Israel is increasingly using mass starvation to make Palestinians surrender to its project of Judaizing historical Palestine.
Israel killed at least 25 people at dawn today, initiating another day of assaults and somber news of deaths and other miseries compounded by the ongoing genocidal war on Gaea.
Today’s fatalities included aid seekers, confirming the Israeli government’s utter disregard for non-Israeli and non-White lives.
And how has the world been reacting? With vague condemnations, toothless pledges, and muscle flexing from official channels representing countries across the world.
Meanwhile, civilians from across the world are rallying, calling on their governments and countries to take more concrete and tangible action to stop the genocidal war still endured by millions of Palestinians who live in uncertainty. It remains to be seen when world leaders will finally heed those cries for help.
