AIPAC Says We’re Not Starving In Gaza. How Dare They?
Starvation is everywhere you look here. Denying that is beyond shameful.
About three weeks ago, my parents, my two-and-a-half-year-old son, and I were diagnosed with malnutrition. Like so many other people in the north of Gaza, we have had to deal with extreme levels of exhaustion, dehydration, anxiety, and weight loss. Every day is a fight against starvation and disease. I have had the most severe symptoms, including kidney problems. But the emotional trauma that comes from seeing my child and parents in need of food and essential nutrients like dairy and protein supplements and being unable to provide anything for them is just as bad.
Every day starts with the same challenge: make it to the next day. We stumble through the destroyed city desperately trying to find food and wood to burn so we can cook what we get. Gas, electricity, and other basic supplies aren’t available.
No matter how much we try, we don’t have enough to keep us healthy. In the morning, I queue for hours to get our gallons filled with water. After midday, I attempt to find my family medication and food. Most of the time, I fail to get any of it. Finding clean drinking water is an extra burden, and usually an impossibility. We are forced to drink tainted water and to accept a trap we have no way out of: The same thing that is helping us stave off dehydration is also infecting our bodies and hurting our stomachs.
As the world knows, Israel has choked off most of the aid that could reach us. The little that does make it to the north can’t possibly meet the needs of the hundreds of thousands of starving people living here. Besides, it can be a fatal risk to try and get aid. The horrific “flour massacre,” in which Israeli soldiers fired on hundreds of people trying to get flour for their families, is evidence of that. (I had thought about going to that aid convoy, but luckily decided against it.)
But it is not just Israeli aggression that endangers us. People have been killed by mishandled air-dropped aid packages. They have drowned in the sea trying to recover aid that was dropped in the water. Even the things that are supposedly there to save our lives are killing us.
Every day, I look at my son’s face and wonder if I will ever be able to get him enough food, or even milk. Will there ever be a night where he doesn’t cry himself to sleep with hunger? Will there ever be a day when he has had enough to eat? I try to keep him cheerful even as he goes hungry. I try to put a smile on his face even when there are no reasons for any of us to be smiling. I try to keep him, and my family, safe from everything that’s happening, even though there is no way for us to be truly safe right now. I feel weak, and helpless, and naïve, over and over again. And the world is watching all of this happen—watching us slowly die. The only conclusion we can reach is that our lives don’t matter all that much.
Israel and some of its supporters are working hard to pretend that none of this is happening. Benjamin Netanyahu says there is no starvation in Gaza. Palestinian Israeli politician Ayman Odeh was forcibly stopped from speaking in the Knesset after he referenced the hunger crisis. And, in the United States, the lobby group AIPAC has been pushing talking points saying that “reports that people are starving in Gaza are false.”
How dare they? At least 23 children have died from malnutrition in northern Gaza. Even the US State Department says that famine could be setting in. It is a hideous lie to say otherwise.
But you don’t need statistics or outside experts to know the truth. You just need to look at us. I want to tell these people to come to Gaza and try to spread these lies to our faces. They will see what we know: Starvation is widespread here. You can see it in our faces as you walk down the street. Nobody looks the same anymore. The toll that lack of food has taken could not be clearer.
When people deny that we are starving and dying, they are denying our very humanity—our right to the universal values of freedom, equality, and peace. We are being erased from history and existence. If that fact isn’t enough to end this nightmare—if we can’t even have our suffering acknowledged—then we should all stop pretending that we are humans who care for each other equally.
We who are left here in Gaza yearn for the day when we have the chance to live fully normal lives in our own homes and lands. Right now, our lives are pure agony. But we are determined to resist the drive to exterminate us, and to attain our basic human rights. It sometimes feels as though there is nothing to hope for right now. But in the moments that hope creeps through, it is the hope that we can one day be free, equal, and at peace—not better than anyone else, but just like people everywhere.
Thank you for reading The Nation!
We hope you enjoyed the story you just read, just one of the many incisive, deeply reported articles we publish daily. Now more than ever, we need fearless journalism that moves the needle on important issues, uncovers malfeasance and corruption, and uplifts voices and perspectives that often go unheard in mainstream media.
Donate right now and help us hold the powerful accountable, shine a light on issues that would otherwise be swept under the rug, and build a more just and equitable future.
For nearly 160 years, The Nation has stood for truth, justice, and moral clarity. As a reader-supported publication, we are not beholden to the whims of advertisers or a corporate owner. But it does take financial resources to report on stories that may take weeks or months to investigate, thoroughly edit and fact-check articles, and get our stories to readers like you.
Donate today and stand with us for a better future. Thank you for being a supporter of independent journalism.
Thank you for your generosity.
More from The Nation
In Nepal’s Mustang Region, Climate “Loss and Damage” Puts the Survival of a Tibetan Community in Question In Nepal’s Mustang Region, Climate “Loss and Damage” Puts the Survival of a Tibetan Community in Question
What climate change looks and feels like in the Himalayas.
The Dubious Land Deal Threatening East Jerusalem’s Armenian Quarter The Dubious Land Deal Threatening East Jerusalem’s Armenian Quarter
In April 2023, the community learned that an Israeli real estate company would soon construct a hotel on one-fourth of their land. “Progressively, we will lose everything.”
The Invisible Lives of Israel’s Thai Workforce The Invisible Lives of Israel’s Thai Workforce
Manee Jirchat was one of the 31 Thai laborers kidnapped by Hamas on October 7. This is his story.
Who’s Afraid of the International Criminal Court? Who’s Afraid of the International Criminal Court?
In two decades, the ICC has never indicted a Western official. But a warrant may be coming for Benjamin Netanyahu.
Rafah Is in Panic as the Israeli Invasion Begins Rafah Is in Panic as the Israeli Invasion Begins
With Israeli forces entering Gaza’s southernmost city, scenes from the Nakba are being repeated in the strip’s last refuge.
Local Elections in Britain Put the Labour Party’s Stance on Gaza Under the Spotlight Local Elections in Britain Put the Labour Party’s Stance on Gaza Under the Spotlight
Labour leader Keir Starmer is favored to win the UK’s general election later this year, but—as with Joe Biden—there is one word that could derail his campaign: Gaza.