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starvation
When the Starved Become the Starvers: A Jewish Voice on Gaza
The images from Gaza haunt me not despite my Jewish identity, but because of it—because I recognize in Palestinian faces the same hollow desperation my grandparents described in the faces of their neighbors.
Jun 11, 2025
The photographs are unbearable. Hollow-eyed children staring into cameras, their faces etched with a hunger that reaches beyond the physical. Families huddled in makeshift shelters, their possessions reduced to what they could carry. These images from Gaza pierce through my screen and lodge themselves in a place where other images have lived for decades—the inherited memories of my grandparents' stories, passed down like sacred wounds.
All four of my grandparents fled the Nazi machinery of death. They carried with them fragments of lives destroyed: a photograph here, a recipe there, stories that began with abundance and ended with ash. They spoke of hunger as a weapon, of siege as strategy, of how systematically cutting off food, medicine, and hope could break a people's spirit before breaking their bodies.
I grew up believing that "Never Again" meant exactly that—never again would any people, anywhere, face the deliberate infliction of starvation and suffering. I believed that we, as Jews, would be the first to recognize the early warning signs, the first to cry out when others faced the machinery of dehumanization.
Today, I am ashamed.
"Never Again" loses all meaning if it only applies to Jewish suffering.
Not ashamed to be Jewish—that identity remains precious to me, woven as it is with traditions of justice, compassion, and repair of the world. But ashamed that a state claiming to represent Jewish values has chosen hunger as a weapon of war. Ashamed that siege has become a strategy. Ashamed that the descendants of those who cried out, "Let my people go" have become deaf to similar cries in Arabic.
This is not what my grandparents envisioned when they dreamed of a Jewish homeland. They dreamed of safety, yes, but not safety built on others' suffering. They dreamed of dignity, but not dignity that required stripping it from their neighbors. They imagined a place where Jewish children could grow up free from fear, but they never imagined that freedom would come at the cost of Palestinian children growing up with empty stomachs.
The Israel my grandparents hoped for was meant to be a light unto the nations—a place where the lessons of Jewish suffering would translate into Jewish compassion. Instead, we see policies that mirror the very tactics once used against us. We see justifications that echo the language of those who once justified our persecution. We see the slow strangulation of a people that feels horrifyingly familiar to anyone who has studied the ghettos of Warsaw or the camps of Europe.
I know the counterarguments. I know about security concerns, about terrorism, about the complexity of this conflict. I know that Israelis have suffered, that Jewish children have died, that fear runs deep on all sides. But none of this justifies using starvation as a weapon. None of this justifies trapping 2 million people in what amounts to an open-air prison. None of this honors the memory of those who died precisely because the world stood by while their humanity was systematically denied.
The Jewish concept of tikkun olam—repairing the world—demands that we speak truth even when it's uncomfortable, especially when it's uncomfortable. It demands that we hold our own people accountable to the highest moral standards, not because we hate them, but because we love them too much to watch them betray their own values.
Being Jewish taught me that moral authority comes not from power, but from how that power is used. It taught me that we have a special obligation to protect the vulnerable precisely because we were once vulnerable ourselves. It taught me that "Never Again" loses all meaning if it only applies to Jewish suffering.
The images from Gaza haunt me not despite my Jewish identity, but because of it. They haunt me because I recognize in Palestinian faces the same hollow desperation my grandparents described in the faces of their neighbors. They haunt me because I see in Israeli policies the same cold calculation that once sought to break Jewish spirits through systematic deprivation.
This is not Jewish. This is not what our ancestors dreamed when they prayed, "Next year in Jerusalem." This is not what it means to be a people chosen for the hard work of justice.
We can do better. We must do better. The children of Gaza deserve better. The memory of those who perished in the Holocaust demands better. The future of Judaism itself depends on better.
The photographs will keep coming. The question is whether we will keep our eyes open long enough to see ourselves reflected in them, and whether we will have the courage to look away from the mirror and toward the work of repair.
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International Red Cross Chief Says Gaza Conditions 'Worse' Than 'Hell on Earth'
"We cannot continue to watch what is happening," said Mirjana Spoljaric. "It's surpassing any acceptable legal, moral, and humane standard."
Jun 04, 2025
The president of one of the world's top humanitarian groups said in an interview Wednesday that nearly 20 months after Israel began its relentless assault on Gaza, the international community is watching "a type of warfare... that deprives civilians of their dignity entirely."
Jeremy Bowen, international editor for BBC News, asked International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) president Mirjana Spoljaric about comments she made last month when she visited Gaza, several weeks into Israel's total blockade on humanitarian aid, and declared that the enclave had been transformed into "hell on Earth."
"Has anything changed?" asked Bowen.
"It has become worse," replied Spoljaric. "Humanity is failing in Gaza... We cannot continue to watch what is happening. It's surpassing any acceptable legal, moral, and humane standard."
Spoljaric's latest remarks came a week after the U.S.- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) began its aid operations, with proponents claiming the private company staffed by U.S. security contractors would save the lives of Gaza residents who have faced increasing starvation and malnutrition since the current blockade began in March—while ensuring Hamas did not steal or divert the aid. The United Nations has said there is no evidence Hamas has systematically diverted relief from civilians.
Fears about the GHF's plan—expressed by aid organizations, the U.N., and the former executive director who resigned the day before operations began—have been proven correct since the group opened its distribution sites in southern Gaza last week. At least 27 Palestinians were killed Tuesday at one of the aid sites when the Israel Defense Forces opened fire—yet another incident of the IDF killing of people trying to obtain aid.
The ICRC said its field hospital in Rafah received "a mass casualty influx of 184 patients" early on Tuesday morning.
"This includes nineteen cases who were declared dead upon arrival and eight more who died due to their wounds shortly after," said the group. "The majority of cases suffered gunshot wounds. Again, all responsive patients said they were trying to reach an assistance distribution site."
Mohamed Zidan, the husband of a woman named Reem al-Akhras who was killed in Tuesday's mass shooting, said the GHF operation was "not humanitarian aid—it's a trap."
"She went to bring us some food, and this is what happened to her," her son Zain Zidan toldAl Jazeera.
Journalist Rania Khalek condemned corporate news outlets for their reports of "conflicting accounts" as Israel said that the IDF fired only at "several suspects moving toward them."
"Outrageous," said Khalek. "The Israelis are proven liars, their narrative should not be given any legitimacy. CNN continues to cover for genocide, shameful."
Israeli forces also opened fire at one of the sites on Sunday, killing 20 people and wounding hundreds who had walked an average of 9.3 miles to the distribution hub, hoping to carry home food boxes weighing about 44 pounds, with enough food to last about three days before they would need to make the trek—and avoid IDF soldiers stationed at the sites—again.
On Wednesday, the GHF said its four distribution sites would be closed for the day to improve "organization and efficiency," while the IDF warned Palestinians to stay away from the sites and the roads leading to them, saying they had been designated "combat zones."
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres demanded an independent inquiry into the killing of Palestinians at food distribution sites.
"It is unacceptable that Palestinians are risking their lives for food," Guterres said.
Gaza's Health Ministry reported Wednesday that at least 94 Palestinians had been killed and 440 had been wounded in Israel's attacks across the enclave in the past 24 hours.
In her interview with the BBC, Spoljaric said that the destruction of more than 90% of Gaza's housing units, the risk of famine for the entire population, and the forced displacement of 90% of Palestinians in the enclave represent "a people being entirely stripped of its human dignity."
"There is no excuse for depriving children of their access to food, health, and security," said Spoljaric. "There are rules in the conduct of hostilities that every party to every conflict has to respect."
Spoljaric called on international leaders to take all available actions to stop "a type of warfare that shows utmost disrespect for civilians."
"Today we are in it," she said. "Today we can reverse it. We can save lives today."
Few U.S. officials have called for an end to the government's support for the IDF, and the U.S. continues to repeat Israel's claim that it is acting in self-defense and targeting Hamas rather than civilians.
Several European leaders in recent weeks have harshly criticized Israel's intensified military campaign in Gaza and its humanitarian aid blockade, with German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul suggesting the country could soon impose arms export sanctions.
"It's important to act now," said Spoljaric. "State leaders are under an obligation to act."
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Can We Stage a Jailbreak From the Grim Prisons Created by the Gaza War?
Life becomes limited when we accept that it must be a nightmare for the weak, when we confess that we are more addicted to comfort than we are to compassion.
Jun 04, 2025
Here at the United Nations in New York City, the Security Council is expected to vote on a resolution calling on all parties to respect an immediate and permanent cease-fire in Gaza.
The slaughter in Gaza entraps and attacks the helpless, turning shelters into mass graves, erasing entire families, weaponizing nutrition and famine. The spiraling violence shrieks for our attention, screams for effective protection. Who will save innocent people from snipers, aerial attacks, tank-fired missiles, poisoned water, and starvation? The U.S. and many allies instead work to insulate Israel from accountability.
“Overcoming this cocoon of protection,” said international human rights lawyer and former U.N. official Craig Mokhiber, “requires solidarity between movements, unions, religious communities, and like-minded states working to isolate the Israeli regime and to impose economic, trade, travel, diplomatic, cultural, and other consequences to compel change.”
Meanwhile, all of Gaza remains an open-air prison containing numerous centers where people, including children, are tortured by Israel’s starvation, siege, and bombing.
In NYC, on day 14 of a Veterans For Peace and Allies Fast for Gaza, a former U.S. Marine who helped initiate the fast, Phil Tottenham, urges us to care about Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian woman whose witness on behalf of Palestinians apparently led to her unjust imprisonment.
The current administration has slated her for deportation purely on the grounds that she criticized the government of a foreign country. Far from her home in New Jersey, she is trapped in a Texan county jail. Her plight makes me think of another prisoner, Ron Feiner, an IDF soldier who chose to face prison rather than continue attacking people in Gaza. “I’m horrified by the never-ending war in Gaza,” said Feiner, “by the abandonment of the hostages, by the continued killing of innocent people, and by the complete lack of political vision.” He is now on day nine of what could be a quite dangerous 20-day sentence in an Israeli military prison.
The director of Gaza’s now-demolished Kamal Adwan Hospital, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, is suffering a longer and much more perious sentence at Israel’s grim Ofer Prison, where his work to heal the sick has seen him designated an “enemy combatant,” and where multiple protracted beating sessions—torture sessions really—have possibly cost him an eye
I think of pediatrician Dr. Alla al-Najjar, whose valuable work at the Nasser medical complex has cost her the lives of all but one of her 10 children, as well as her husband, also an M.D. They were taken from her in a targeted strike on her home while she was at the hospital complex attempting to save other Gazan children. Now she continues her work, trying mightily to save 11-year-old Adam, her only surviving child.
We must also note the appalling conditions of ordinary Palestinian prisoners, many of them held without charge. “They are subjected to a systematic campaign of abuse, starvation, and deliberate medical neglect,” said a recent Addameer report, which goes on to describe “widespread arrest campaigns across cities, villages, and refugee camps, which have led to a massive increase in the number of prisoners and detainees.” Prisoners survive on minimal rations, and many endure brutal and life-threatening treatment.
Meanwhile, all of Gaza remains an open-air prison containing numerous centers where people, including children, are tortured by Israel’s starvation, siege, and bombing.
None of this has been inflicted for the purposes of freeing the remaining hostages captured by Hamas and by the other armed groups who flooded into Israel on one day of rebellion, 20 months ago. The cease-fire agreed upon last November would, had Israel and the U.S. honored it, have provided for the release of all the hostages. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his extremist collaborators would have lost their excuse for ethnically cleansing Gaza, and after that the West Bank.
In 1972, an iconic photo of Phan Thi Kim Phuc, “running naked, screaming in agony, her body burned by napalm dropped by the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese army,” became a catalyst which helped end the war in Vietnam. Now, 50 years later, images of burning children in Gaza are relentless.
Recently, a video of 7-year-old Ward al-Sheikh Khalil, her tiny body surrounded by flames, went viral. She and her family were sleeping in a school where forcibly displaced Palestinians had moved into classrooms and the courtyard. She survived Israel’s aerial attack, but her mother and five siblings did not. Her father remains in critical condition.
Life becomes limited when we accept that it must be a nightmare for the weak, when we confess that we are more addicted to comfort than we are to compassion—when the service of our appetites causes us to ignore the starving and those deliberately consigned to flames. We who fast might not succeed in our attempted “jailbreak” from this grim prison where we must watch the inmates die off one by one in the next ward over. But in whatever way you can, we urge you to join the attempt.
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