In an age of abundance and ceasefires, Gaza starves, and the war won't stop
Gaza City – Israel and Iran fought for 12 days, firing bombs, drones and missiles at each other, with the United States even joining in the bombing. Then, earlier this week, it stopped.
Last month, India and Pakistan attacked each other, and the world feared the outbreak of an all-out war between the two nuclear powers. But then, after four days, it stopped.
In Gaza, we haven't been so lucky. The word 'ceasefire' doesn't apply to us – even after 20 months of slaughter, death, and starvation.
Instead, as wars erupt and end elsewhere, Gaza is neglected, slipping down the news agenda, and disconnected from the internet for days.
World leaders that can end wars decisively can't deliver medicine to Gaza, can't bring in food aid without daily bloodshed.
That inadequacy has left us Palestinians in Gaza isolated, abandoned, and feeling worthless. We feel humiliated and degraded, as if our dignity has been erased.
We prayed that the end of the war between Israel and Iran would perhaps help end the one that is being waged on us.
But we were wrong. Even as Iran's missiles rained down on Tel Aviv, Israel never stopped bombing us. Its tanks rolled on, its evacuation orders never ceased. And the daily charade of 'humanitarian aid' has continued to kill starving Palestinians as they wait in line at distribution sites.
As Israel's bombs continued to fall on us, as they have done since October 2023, we watched as Israelis wept over their own bombed hospitals, damaged cities, and disrupted lives.
'What did we do? Why are we being bombed?' they asked, at the same time as they continued to attack Gaza's hospitals, kill Gaza's children, and murder those trying to get food.
Hating food
In Gaza, we don't have wishes any more. I don't dare to dream about surviving – my heart can no longer bear the sorrow of being in this world, the absence of any future.
We're exhausted from being stories people read, videos they watch. Every minute: bombing, death, and hunger.
Especially hunger. During three months of siege and starvation, Israel initially steadfastly refused to allow food in and then allowed distribution only through a shady and militarised organisation, with Israeli forces shooting in.
The situation has made me come to hate food. My relationship with it has forever changed, twisted into resentment and bitterness.
I crave everything. I ask myself, 'What will we eat? What do we have available?'
I imagine myself at a table full of delicacies, throwing everything onto the ground in protest, screaming through tears not out of hunger, but for my wounded dignity.
It is this hunger and the basic human instinct to survive that drives tens of thousands of starving men, women and children to the daily slaughter that is the food distribution sites.
The hunger dulls every other sense. An empty stomach means an empty mind, a failing body. It makes you do things your brain tells you not to do, to risk everything for a bag of flour, or a bag of lentils.
And all of this – the starvation of 2 million people – takes place in the age of global food abundance. The age of pistachio desserts, Dubai chocolates, cheesecakes with layers of cream, gourmet burgers, pizzas, sauces, and creams.
For the rest of the world, food is a phone tap away. For us, it taunts us, reminding us of our calamity.
Taunted by the tablet
Every time I open my phone to see photos, recipes, and trending desserts, I feel a pang in my heart reminding me that we are not living in the same world.
My nine-year-old daugher Banias watches Instagram reels with me and says, 'Mom, every chef says the ingredients are easy and found in every home … but not ours.'
Her words pierce me. She says them with sorrow, not complaint.
Banias never complains. She accepts the pasta or lentils I offer. But the pain is there.
My children watch kids' shows on a device I bought at great cost, with a backup battery to offset the two-year power blackout. I did it so they could have some joy, some escape. But I didn't consider what that screen would show them.
They play songs and videos all day long about apples, bananas, strawberries, watermelon, grapes, milk, eggs, pizza, chicken, ice cream.
All the things I can't give them.
The device started playing a song: 'Are you hungry?'
My heart can't take it. What is this cursed screen doing?
I rushed out of the kitchen, where I had just finished cooking the same pasta with canned sauce – maybe for the 50th time.
I looked into my children's eyes. Iyas, turning two this month, has never tasted any of these fruits or foods.
Banias watches and casually says while eating her pasta, 'See, Mama? Even the dolls get to eat fruit and grapes and yummy stuff.'
Every moment here reminds me that the world lives in one reality, and we live in another. Even children's songs aren't made for us any more.
We've become an exception to life. An exception to joy.
The fear of what comes next
And yet, we are still among the 'lucky' ones, because others have run out of food entirely.
I felt that growing dread last week when I opened my last kilo of rice. Fear and despair overwhelmed me. Then, it was the last spoon of milk, then lentils, chickpeas, cornstarch, halva, tomato sauce, the last cans of beans, peas, bulghur.
Our stocks are vanishing. There are no replacements. Every empty shelf feels like a blow to the soul. If this famine continues, what comes next?
It's like walking step by step towards death. Every day without a solution brings us closer to a deeper mass starvation. Every trip to the market that ends empty-handed feels like a dagger to the heart.
And that is just the food struggle. What if I told you about cooking on firewood? Fetching water from distant desalination stations, most of which have shut down? Walking for hours without transport? The cash shortage? Skyrocketing fees and prices?
All this, under the shadow of constant Israeli air strikes.
We've disappeared from the headlines, but our suffering remains — layered, worsening by the day.
What did Gaza do to deserve this erasure, this merciless genocide? Wars end everywhere, ceasefires are possible anywhere.
But for Gaza, we need a miracle for the war to stop.
Gaza will not forgive the world. The blood of our children and their starving bellies will not forget.
We write to record what is happening, not to plead with anyone.
Gaza, the land of dignity and generosity, lives a daily horror to survive. And all while the world watches on.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Al Jazeera
an hour ago
- Al Jazeera
Israeli soldiers ‘ordered' to shoot at unarmed Gaza aid seekers: Report
Israeli soldiers have deliberately shot at unarmed Palestinians seeking aid in Gaza after being 'ordered' to do so by their commanders, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports. Israel ordered an investigation into possible war crimes over the allegations by some soldiers that it revealed on Friday, Haaretz said. At least 549 Palestinians have been killed and 4,066 injured while waiting for food aid distributed at sites run by the Israeli-and United States-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the Gaza Government Media Office said on Thursday. The GHF has been a source of widespread criticism since its establishment in May. According to the Haaretz report, which quoted unnamed Israeli soldiers, troops were told to fire at the crowds of Palestinians and use unnecessary lethal force against people who appeared to pose no threat. 'We fired machineguns from tanks and threw grenades,' one soldier told Haaretz. 'There was one incident where a group of civilians was hit while advancing under the cover of fog.' In another instance, a soldier said that where they were stationed in Gaza, between 'one and five people were killed every day'. 'It's a killing field,' that soldier said. Method of 'control' According to Haaretz, the Military Advocate General has told the army's General Staff's Fact-Finding Assessment Mechanism, which reviews incidents involving potential violations of the laws of war, to investigate suspected war crimes at these aid sites. One of the authors of the report, Nir Hasson, told Al Jazeera that the Israeli directive to fire on civilians is part of a method to 'control' the aid seekers. 'It's actually a practice of … controlling the crowd by fire, like if you wanted the crowd to run off [from] a place, you shoot them at them, even though you know they are unarmed … You use fire to move people from one point to another,' he said from West Jerusalem. While the journalist and his colleagues do not know the name of the commander who might have issued such a directive, Hasson said that he would likely hold a position high up in the army. Despite this practice at these sites, most Israelis and the army's troops still believe the war on Gaza is just, even while some cracks are emerging in this understanding, the journalist said. '[There are] more and more people who are asking themselves if this war is necessary, but also what is the humanitarian price the Gazan population is [paying] for this war,' he said. 'A death trap' Reporting from Amman, Jordan, Al Jazeera's Hamdah Salhut said the Haaretz report is 'shocking'. 'People in Gaza have said these distribution centres have now become a death trap for Palestinians,' Salhut said. 'Aid groups have said that Palestinians are left with no choice – to either starve to death, or die seeking the very little food that is offered in the distribution centres run by the GHF,' she added. The GHF operates four food distribution sites in Gaza – one in the centre and three in south. Since an Israeli blockade was lifted on the entry of humanitarian goods at the end of May, attacks on aid seekers in Gaza have increased. On Friday, medics said six people were killed by gunfire as they tried to get food in southern Gaza. But the GHF has come under intense condemnation by aid groups, including the United Nations, for its 'weaponisation' of vital items. On Friday, Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials, MSF, called the GHF's aid distribution sites 'slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid'. Since Israel began its war on Gaza in October 2023, at least 56,331 people have been killed, with 132,632 wounded in Israeli attacks, Gaza's Health Ministry reported.
Al Jazeera
an hour ago
- Al Jazeera
At least one killed as Israeli strikes pummel southern Lebanon
At least one person has been killed and more than a dozen others were wounded in Israeli air attacks on southern Lebanon, the health ministry has said, as the Israeli military said it struck sites linked to the armed group Hezbollah. In a report on Friday, Lebanon's state-run National News Agency cited the country's health ministry saying that a woman and 13 other people were targeted in an air raid that hit a residential apartment building in Nabatieh. Seven others were wounded in air raids on the outskirts of the city, it added. The Israeli army said its fighters attacked an underground site used by Hezbollah for its fire and defence system in Belfort, a site in the Nabatieh governorate. The military said it identified attempts by the Lebanese group to resume activities there after Israel had taken it out of use in the past. The resumption of activities there would have been in breach of the November truce agreed by the two sides, which halted more than a year of fire exchanges and nearly two months of an all-out war. Later on Friday, the Israeli army spokesman said that Lebanese reports that an Israeli drone hit a residential building, causing civilian injuries, 'were inaccurate'. In a post on X, Avichay Adraee said that 'the explosion that damaged the civilian building was caused by a rocket located at the Hezbollah site, which detonated as a result of the Israeli strike'. He accused Hezbollah of 'continuing to store its aggressive rockets near residential buildings and Lebanese civilians, thereby putting them at risk'. Footage shared on social media, and verified by Al Jazeera's Sanad fact-checking agency, shows large plumes rising from the hill where Israeli aircraft struck their target, as the roar of jets is heard overhead. سلسلة غارات تستهدف النبطية الفوقا#الجنوب_اللبناني — (@Fatimash28) June 27, 2025 Lebanon's President Joseph Aoun on Friday accused Israel of continually violating the US-brokered ceasefire deal by keeping up strikes on Lebanon. The ceasefire deal stipulates that southern Lebanon must be free of any non-state arms or fighters, Israeli soldiers must leave southern Lebanon as Lebanese troops deploy there and all fire across the Lebanese-Israeli border must stop. Israeli troops remain in at least five posts within Lebanese territory and its air force regularly launches air raids, which it claims target rank and file Hezbollah members or people affiliated with the group.
Al Jazeera
2 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
US Supreme Court limits courts' ability to issue nationwide injunctions
The United States Supreme Court has ruled that lower courts likely overstepped their authority in issuing nationwide injunctions against presidential actions, limiting the ability of the judicial branch to check executive power. Friday's decision came in response to injunctions from federal courts in Washington, Maryland and Massachusetts which sought to block President Donald Trump's ability to curtail the right to birthright citizenship. 'Universal injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts,' the court's majority said in its decision. 'The Court grants the Government's applications for a partial stay of the injunctions.' But, the court said, that stay applies 'only to the extent that the injunctions are broader than necessary'. The decision was a major victory for the Trump administration, which has denounced 'judicial overreach' as an unconstitutional obstacle to its policies. Lower courts had come out strongly against Trump's efforts to redefine birthright citizenship, a right established under the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution, which was adopted in the wake of the US Civil War. The amendment declared that 'all persons born' in the US and 'subject to the jurisdiction thereof' would be citizens. The courts have repeatedly interpreted that text as granting citizenship to nearly all people born in the US, regardless of their parents' nationalities. There were limited exceptions, including for the children of diplomats. But in his 2024 re-election bid, Trump campaigned on a platform that would see the Fourteenth Amendment reinterpreted to exclude the children of undocumented immigrants. The new policy, his platform said, 'will make clear that going forward, the children of illegal aliens will not be granted automatic citizenship'. On the first day of his second term, January 20, he followed through on that campaign promise, signing an executive order called, 'Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship'. But immigration advocates said that Trump's policy violated the Constitution, and lower courts sided with them, issuing nationwide injunctions that barred the executive order from taking effect. More details to come…
