Gaza Is Starving. The World Is Watching

Across social media and newsrooms, people repeat the same hollow phrase: “Gaza is suffering from a humanitarian crisis.” As if hunger simply happened. As if starvation emerged out of thin air — an unfortunate side effect of war. But let’s make one thing clear:

Gaza is not starving because it is poor. Gaza is starving because it has been deliberately deprived.

This isn’t a tragedy. It’s a siege.

This isn’t neglect. It’s punishment.

And anyone still trying to frame this as a complex “conflict” instead of a military-engineered atrocity is complicit in the erasure of truth.

 

Gaza Was Never Helpless. It Was Thriving.

Before the bombs, before the blockade intensified, before the headlines that reduce an entire people to statistics — Gaza was thriving. It was alive. And it was feeding itself.

Gaza was self-sufficient under impossible conditions. Despite a decades-long blockade and occupation, it grew its own crops, raised its own cattle, and exported strawberries to Europe. Let that sit with you: a land under siege was still exporting produce to the world.

Khan Younis was home to sprawling watermelon fields. Mawasi had avocado farms — a fruit considered a luxury across the Arab world, yet Gazans were growing it in abundance and selling it affordably. In Sheikh Ajleen, the grapes and figs were unmatched. The seafood industry flourished, even under a coastal blockade that criminalized fishing too far from shore.

This wasn’t scarcity. This was resilience.

Factories in Shujaiyya produced fresh dairy and cheese with a fully local workforce. Gaza didn’t just survive — it built. It engineered. It created. Homes were architectural masterpieces, crafted by Gazan architects who rivaled global standards. Coffee shops thrived, stocked with beans that outshined European imports. Families spoiled their children with candy and fresh juice, as any parent would — until the siege turned the act of feeding your child into an impossible dream.

Gaza proved something dangerous to its occupiers: that Palestinians could sustain themselves without them. And that is why they are being starved.

 

This Is Not a Crisis. It’s an Economic Execution.

What’s happening in Gaza is not an accident. It is not about "both sides." This is not a natural disaster. This is systemic, strategic, and intentional.

Israel has bombed farmland. Leveled factories. Poisoned water. Killed livestock. Flattened bakeries and markets. It has turned grocery aisles into rubble and orchards into ash. There is nothing left to buy — not because Gazans can’t afford it, but because it no longer exists.

The milk is gone. The bread is gone. The stores are gone. The farmland is gone. The food trucks that could bring some form of relief? They are sitting idle at the border — engines off, while children die.

This is starvation as military doctrine. This is siege warfare under the cover of “self-defense.” This is collective punishment — a war crime — and it is happening in full view of the world.

While parents lie to their children, promising they’ll have candy “tomorrow,” governments lie to their citizens, promising peace “soon.” But the child learns the truth before the politician ever does: there is no candy. There is no relief. Only silence, dust, and the slow death of a people.

 

The World Keeps Asking Gaza to Prove Its Worthiness to Live

Why is it that every Palestinian must first be pitied, softened, and sanitized before the world listens? Why must a starving child be photogenic? Why must the resistance be poetic?

Gaza is not starving to teach you a lesson in empathy. Gaza is starving because the world is afraid of what it means when Palestinians feed themselves, govern themselves, and thrive without permission.

This war isn’t just on people. It’s on self-reliance. On independence. On dignity.

It is no coincidence that the areas most bombed are the ones that fed the people. It is no coincidence that Gaza’s cultural, architectural, and agricultural pride has been reduced to rubble. This is not collateral damage. It is targeted erasure.

And every time someone dares to say “but Hamas” to justify the mass punishment of civilians, they’re echoing the logic of every empire that needed a reason to crush the communities it could not control.

The international community keeps asking Palestinians to behave — to protest peacefully, to suffer quietly, to die politely. But the people of Gaza are not asking for your permission to survive. They are not seeking validation. They are not waiting to be humanized.

They are waiting to eat.

And while they wait, the world debates whether or not it’s “appropriate” to speak up. Whether it’s “balanced” to call starvation a war crime. Whether it’s “productive” to criticize a government with nuclear weapons and U.S. backing.

But what is left to debate when the bakeries are gone?

What is left to analyze when the avocado groves are flattened and the children are digging through rubble for scraps of flour?

The time for language games is over.

 

Call It What It Is. And Then Act.

No more neutrality. No more “both sides” lies.

This is siege warfare. It is starvation as policy. It is a crime that demands accountability.

You are not powerless. You live in a country that funds this siege and supplies its bombs. That shields it diplomatically. That supplies the bombs and then publishes op-eds about “civility” as bodies pile in silence.

Here is how you fight back:

• Donate to organizations on the ground:

  • Baitulmaal USA

  • Islamic Relief USA

  • Anera

  • Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF)

• Call your representatives. Demand a permanent ceasefire, open humanitarian corridors, and accountability for war crimes.

• Reject the false neutrality of “both sides.” One side controls Gaza’s borders, airspace, water, food, and fuel.

• Amplify Palestinian voices — businesses, artists, writers, and journalists.

• Speak out — even when it’s uncomfortable.

 

This Isn’t About Aid. It’s About Ending the Siege.

Palestinians don’t need saving. They need the boot off their necks. They need to be allowed to live, farm, build, harvest, raise children, and die natural deaths — not ones forced upon them by airstrikes and starvation policies.

The Gazan people built a home with their own hands. They grew their food. They taught their children. They loved their land — and for that, they were deemed a threat.

This is not a humanitarian crisis. It is a political one. And it demands political courage.

So stop asking what’s happening “over there.”

Start asking why your government funds it.

Start asking why hundreds of food trucks are parked while babies die.

Start asking why Gaza was punished for thriving.

And don’t stop asking until they’re free.