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starvation
We Must Call It What It Is: A Genocide in Gaza
For too long, our elected officials have hidden behind euphemisms like “tragedy” or “conflict.” But history will not remember their silence kindly.
Oct 07, 2025
Over the past two years, Gaza has been turned into rubble and starvation by one of the most relentless bombing campaigns in modern history. This is not a conflict. It is not a “war between two sides.” It is genocide—the deliberate destruction of a people, carried out in full view of the world.
More than 66,000 Palestinians have been confirmed killed, most of them women and children. But that number only scratches the surface. Humanitarian agencies estimate that over 680,000 people may have died—buried under collapsed buildings, starved to death, or left to suffer without medicine or clean water as Israel continues to blockade aid. The death toll grows daily as people die unseen beneath the rubble.
I speak not only as an advocate for justice, but as someone personally scarred by this horror. Over 200 members of my own family have been killed in this genocide. Their lives ended in the same way as tens of thousands of others—bombed in their homes, trapped without food, or killed while trying to flee. These were teachers, children, and parents. They were human beings who deserved to live in peace.
Across the world, millions are refusing to look away. From Amsterdam to Istanbul, from New York to Johannesburg, protesters are filling the streets to call this what it is: genocide. Even many who once hesitated to use that word now recognize it as the only accurate description.
The question now is not whether this is genocide. The question is: what will we do about it?
This genocide has extended beyond Gaza’s borders. In the West Bank, Israeli incursions continue—raids, home demolitions, mass arrests, and settler violence, all designed to displace Palestinians from their homeland.
Meanwhile, Gaza is being starved. Thousands are dying for lack of food, water, and medicine. Hospitals have been reduced to ashes, and more than 560 aid workers and medical personnel have been killed. This is not an accident—it is strategy. Starvation and disease have become weapons of war.
It is clear: Israel’s campaign can only have been made possible by US weapons and funding. Every bomb dropped on Gaza carries the imprint “Made in America.” Every home destroyed is a reminder that the US continues to arm and defend a government committing crimes against humanity. This does not serve America’s interests. It only increases anger and resentment toward our country.
There can be no moral ambiguity left. The bombing must stop—permanently. Israel must end its incursions into the West Bank and allow full humanitarian access for rebuilding Gaza. Palestinians have the right to live freely and safely on their own land.
For too long, our elected officials have hidden behind euphemisms like “tragedy” or “conflict.” But history will not remember their silence kindly. It will remember who stood by as a people were starved and buried alive—and who had the courage to speak.
The United States cannot continue to claim moral leadership while enabling genocide. Every day that our government sends weapons to Israel, it deepens our complicity.
The question now is not whether this is genocide. The question is: what will we do about it?
For many, the response has been philanthropy; protesting; and participation in the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement—all vital and powerful tools for change. But if we want lasting impact, we must also build political power.
That is why CAIR Action was created: to turn outrage into organization, and compassion into change. Through our educational campaigns, voter guides, endorsements, and candidate amplification, we are helping communities of conscience identify and elect leaders who will stand up against genocide and vote for peace and justice.
We are organizing to shape the next generation of politicians—leaders who will not shrink from truth, who will end U. complicity, and who will fight for human rights everywhere.
Our humanity—and our democracy—depend on it.
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Attack on Flotilla Shows How Far Israel Will Go to Keep 'Deliberately Starving' Gaza: Amnesty
“By continuing to actively block vital aid to a population against whom Israel is committing genocide, including by inflicting famine, Israel is once again demonstrating its utter contempt for the legally binding orders of the International Court of Justice," says Amnesty International's secretary-general Agnès Callamard.
Oct 02, 2025
Amid international outrage and protest over the interdiction and detention of humanitarians aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla by Israeli military forces, Amnesty International on Thursday said the effort to block the approximately 40 vessels bound to Gaza with life-saving aid shows just how far the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will go to keep "deliberately starving" innocent Palestinians in the besieged enclave.
“Israel’s forceful interception of the Global Sumud Flotilla vessels and detention of its crew off the coast of Gaza is a brazen assault against solidarity activists carrying out an entirely peaceful humanitarian mission," said Amnesty's secretary-general Agnès Callamard in a statement. "This seizure comes after weeks of threats and incitement by Israeli officials against the flotilla and its participants and after several attempts to sabotage some of its ships."
“By continuing to actively block vital aid to a population against whom Israel is committing genocide, including by inflicting famine, Israel is once again demonstrating its utter contempt for the legally binding orders of the International Court of Justice and its own obligations as the occupying power to ensure Palestinians in Gaza have access to sufficient food and lifesaving humanitarian assistance.
Protests erupted in cities across Europe, the Middle East, and worldwide on Wednesday night after news of the interdiction spread. Though not unexpected, the military assault on the nonviolent flotilla occurred in international waters, eliciting accusations of piracy and lawlessness on the high seas by the Israeli military and its civilian leadership.
In a Thursday morning statement, the group detailed what happened to their flotilla and reminded people worldwide of their purpose:
At approximately 10:00 PM EEST on October 1st, the IOF launched their assault on the Global Sumud Flotilla.
The world bore witness as unarmed civilians carrying humanitarian aid were subjected to intimidation and interception in the final hours of their peaceful mission to Gaza.
As the sun rises, the actions taken under the cover of darkness could not be more clear: they are the desperate maneuvers of an oppressor.
Our spirits are not broken and our resolve is only strengthened.
"This interception is not just about blocking aid," said Callamard. "It is a calculated act of intimidation intended to punish and silence critics of Israel’s genocide and its unlawful blockade on Gaza. The incitement and threats that preceded it are also a shameless attempt to demonize peaceful solidarity initiatives seeking to end Israel’s genocide and the cruel blockade it has imposed on Gaza since 2007 and significantly tightened since October 2023."
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on Wednesday announced that a documented 151 children have now died in Gaza of starvation imposed on them by Israel's blockade of humanitarian aid amid constant bombardment and evacuation orders which have displaced individuals and families without relent.
UNICEF stressed, according to the UN News Centre, "that Gaza’s malnutrition crisis has reached catastrophic levels with the entire child population under five—more than 320,000 children—at risk of acute malnutrition."
With at least 14,383 children acutely malnourished in August, acute malnutrition among young people is up 500% from the beginning of this calendar year, all while aid groups from across the world have sounded the alarm and called for international intervention and the end of the forced starvation.
“This war must end now. Aid must be allowed into the Gaza Strip, including food and nutrition supplies. Humanitarians must be allowed to do their jobs,” said UNICEF communication manager Tess Ingram.
“The children of Gaza," she said, "are being punished by these decisions and it's killing them.”
For her part, Callamard said the attack on the peaceful humanitarian flotilla means that time for rhetoric and simple rebuke has long passed.
"The time for mere condemnation is over. States worldwide must act now and now make clear that they will no longer tolerate Israel’s systematic starvation of Palestinians in Gaza nor its targeting of unarmed civilian humanitarian efforts," she said. "The decades-long impunity for Israel’s blatant violations of international law must end, nothing can justify genocide.
Callamard demanded the "immediate and safe return of all those detained and allow unhindered access to Gaza for the other ships. They must also press Israel to lift its suffocating 18-year blockade and allow humanitarian aid to be delivered through all crossings into and throughout Gaza now."
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Why I Am Joining the People’s Hunger Strike for Gaza
I have joined the hunger strike in grief at the annihilation of Gaza, and to protest the use of my tax dollars to transform the Gaza Strip into a graveyard for its people and international law.
Sep 25, 2025
On September 25 I will begin a weeklong water-only fast as part of The People’s Hunger Strike that was launched outside the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Federal Building in Boston on September 4.
Its goals are to raise consciousness about the deliberate starvation of the people of Gaza and to pressure Massachusetts senators, whose offices are in that building, to sponsor a version of the House "Block the Bombs" bill (HR 3565) that would stop the US from sending Israel the kind of high-impact weaponry being used against civilians in the Gaza Strip in violation of international law.
The Horror of Forced Starvation
The People’s Hunger Strike is the brainchild of a Boston physician Miriam Komaromy. She had not previously been actively involved in organizing for Palestine. But “when forced starvation was imposed on the Gaza population it brought me up short,” she told me. “I said this cannot be. The reality of parents starving and watching their child starve to death—I couldn’t bear it.”
Responding to a Palestinian call urging people of conscience around the world to join a solidarity hunger strike initiated in the West Bank, Dr. Komaromy reached out to members of Boston’s Doctors against Genocide and Healthcare Workers for Palestine-Boston as well as the Boston chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace. Soon they had numerous cosponsoring groups supporting the planned hunger strike, and some 35 people had pledged to undertake one-week fasts.
Many of those who joined the action were new to the issue; others had long been involved in organizing for Palestinian rights. All were affected by what Jeannie—a hunger striker whose Irish heritage taught her something about deliberately manufactured famine—described in the following way: “For almost two years, we’ve seen the images of the displaced, whose homes, schools, hospitals, water, and entire society have been bombed, as they walk through the rubble seeking food and shelter. The woman whose milk has dried up screaming with grief over her dead baby; the face of a skeletal child, crying and holding out an empty pot; a father weeping over the shrouded corpses of his entire family. These images don’t stop coming.”
The Gaza I knew
Those images and the unfolding genocide that has been meticulously documented by human rights organizations including Israeli groups, genocide scholars and, on September 16, the United Nations International Commission of Inquiry, have overwhelmed me. I have a personal relationship with the Gaza Strip going back to my first visit in 1988 as part of a human rights delegation when Israel was using “force, might, and beatings” (Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s phrase) to suppress the first Intifada, an unarmed uprising of the entire civil society.
"We have a duty to do all that we can to stop the genocide that is funded and promoted by our government.”
During the more than a dozen visits I subsequently made to Gaza as head of a foundation supporting its mental health services, I made many friends and experienced this tiny piece of land as a place of extraordinary hospitality. I saw firsthand how its population was demonized by Israel, imprisoned in what has been called an "open air prison" since 2007, and subjected to repeated sustained military bombardments well before the seismic events of October 7, 2023.
I have joined the hunger strike in grief at the annihilation of Gaza, and to protest the use of my tax dollars to transform the Gaza Strip into a graveyard for its people and international law.
Our Duty to Stop Genocide
Several people I work with in the Boston-based Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine have also joined the fast. Judy, who recently finished her week without food, says she fasted because “I am angry and heartbroken watching the people of Gaza endure forced starvation and seeing what it does to their bodies, spirit, and to their future. I joined the strike to pressure our government to stop sending Israel weapons.”
Jude, who is in treatment for cancer herself, hopes to personalize and make visible the impact of the Israeli-created famine and the long-term harm it is causing. She adds: “I can retreat from this strike at the first sign of harm. This is not true for our counterparts in Gaza who are exhausted; without food, water, medicine, or shelter; and under constant attack. We have a duty to do all that we can to stop the genocide that is funded and promoted by our government.”
Kathy hopes that the hunger strike will send a loud message to her elected representative, Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), who has not signed onto the House "Block the Bombs" bill despite “countless calls from her constituents over the last two years concerning the weapons the US has sent to Israel with Massachusetts tax dollars. The result has been the extermination of entire generational families living in Gaza, as well as the killing and maiming of massive numbers of civilians including babies, children, courageous journalists, and doctors. We want her to stand with the Congressional Progressive Caucus which has endorsed the Block the Bombs Act.”
It is too late to save the lives of more than 65,000 Palestinians, many slaughtered with US weapons and 83% of them civilians according to the Israeli army’s own data. It is too late to bring back the hundreds of children who have already died from forced starvation. But we hope that the hunger strike will amplify our message: Let Gaza Live!
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