A grim and powerful act of protest has taken place in Gaza.
In the midst of the Israeli-US-imposed blockade on food and humanitarian aid - a policy that has already caused many Palestinians to die - a significant public figure has himself gone on hunger strike.
On Sunday, 20 July, Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson for the Palestinian Civil Defence in Gaza and long persecuted by the Israeli occupation for documenting conditions on the ground, announced a hunger strike.
"I am Mahmoud Basal, a Palestinian citizen, a free human being," he declared. "For days now, I have been living on scraps of food, like more than two million citizens. Due to the lack of basic food in the Gaza Strip, I declare a full hunger strike in protest against the catastrophic famine striking Gaza, and in solidarity with more than two million people who have been left to face death by starvation amid shameful global silence."
While Israel has long used food as a weapon - measuring out the bare minimum number of calories required to keep Gaza's population on the brink of malnutrition - we are now witnessing the radical consequences of restrictions and blockades that have been normalised over decades.
This strategy was infamously outlined in a 2008 Israeli position paper, “Food Consumption in the Gaza Strip” - Red Lines.
'Unbearable loss'
Incremental yet relentless waves of dehumanising propaganda in western media and political discourse, reinforced by repeated Israeli assaults on Gaza that leave mass death and devastation in their wake, have brought us to the horrific present reality.
Now, Israeli forces target unarmed, starving people in search of food using snipers, artillery and drones - people who are then presented not as victims, but as trespassers on their own land.
Read the full article HERE on Middle East Eye
