Agrim 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.
Read more: Israel’s starvation of Gaza is a cruel display of the impunity of power
