<div dir="ltr">
<h1 class="gmail-single_title">Starvation over submission: Testimonies from Gaza shatter Israel\u2019s bet on hunger</h1>
<p class="gmail-single_date">Monday 5-May-2025 - <font size="1"><a href="https://english.palinfo.com/reports/2025/05/05/338702/">https://english.palinfo.com/reports/2025/05/05/338702/</a></font></p>
<div class="gmail-featured_image"><img width="394" height="278" src="https://english.palinfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/gaza-1.jpg" class="gmail-attachment-post-thumbnail gmail-size-post-thumbnail gmail-wp-post-image" alt="" style="margin-right: 0px;"> </div>
<div class="gmail-shareArea">
<div class="gmail-picshare">
<div class="et_pb_code_inner">
<div class="gmail-social_home">
<div class="gmail-social_home_inner">
<div class="gmail-social_home_wrapper"><div class="gmail-ETFont gmail-social_home_item gmail-social_home_item1"><a href="https://english.palinfo.com/reports/2025/05/05/338702/#"><span class="gmail-social_home_icon"><i class="gmail-fab gmail-fa-facebook-f"></i></span></a></div><div class="gmail-ETFont gmail-social_home_item gmail-social_home_item2"><a href="https://english.palinfo.com/reports/2025/05/05/338702/#"><span class="gmail-social_home_icon"><i class="gmail-fa-brands gmail-fa-twitter"></i></span></a></div><div class="gmail-FontAw gmail-social_home_item gmail-social_home_item4"><a href="https://english.palinfo.com/reports/2025/05/05/338702/#"><span class="gmail-social_home_icon"><i class="gmail-fa-brands gmail-fa-whatsapp"></i></span></a></div></div><div class="gmail-FontAw gmail-social_home_item gmail-social_home_item5"><a href="https://english.palinfo.com/reports/2025/05/05/338702/#"><span class="gmail-social_home_icon"><i class="gmail-fa-brands gmail-fa-telegram"></i></span></a></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail-changeSize">
<div class="gmail-zoomInOutNtitle"><div class="gmail-SmallZoomR"><a class="gmail-zoomInOut gmail-increaseFont">+<i class="gmail-fa gmail-fa-font"></i></a> <a class="gmail-zoomInOut gmail-decreaseFont">-<i class="gmail-fa gmail-fa-font"></i></a></div></div></div>
</div>
<div class="gmail-post_content">
<p>GAZA, (PIC)</p>
<p>\u201cI feed my children sugar and water\u2026 but if they opened a corridor
for us to leave in exchange for raising a white flag, we wouldn\u2019t go.\u201d</p>
<p>With these words, Umm Mohammad Mushtaha, displaced from Beit Hanoun
town to the Rimal neighborhood in Gaza City, summarizes the
steadfastness of the people of Gaza in the face of Israel\u2019s policy of
starvation and submission.</p>
<p>Nineteen months of aggression, deliberate aid cuts, systematic
destruction of warehouses and bakeries, and a ban on the entry of fuel
and flour \u2014 none of this succeeded in deterring Palestinians from the
path of resistance. Instead, it created a new layer of \u201cmartyrs of
hunger,\u201d and icons of dignity whose names are repeated like those of
fallen fighters.</p>
<p><strong>We ate tree leaves<br></strong>Abu Hassan Musabeh, a resident
of Jabalia who was deprived of aid, said: \u201cWe had a fig tree at home.
We cut its leaves and cooked them. We ate them, then we got sick. But we
don\u2019t regret it. If the occupation offered us food in exchange for
normalization, we wouldn\u2019t accept it.\u201d</p>
<p>In Al-Shifa Hospital lies Adam Abu Al-Qumbaz, a three-year-old child,
his body frail and barely breathing. His mother weeps: \u201cThey told us
the occupation is deliberately preventing milk and vitamins from
entering for our children. We know \u2014 they want us to weaken and
surrender. But we teach our children that hunger is more bearable than
humiliation.\u201d</p>
<p><strong>The losing bet<br></strong>Observers believe that the Israeli
occupation army relied on hunger as a weapon to break the popular base
of the resistance. But the opposite happened. Hunger deepened hatred of
the occupation and increased determination to stay \u2014 especially with
rising global solidarity with Gaza.</p>
<p>They note: \u201cThe occupation believes economic and psychological
pressure can break our willpower. But it still doesn\u2019t understand that
those who chose to stay under bombardment won\u2019t leave because of
hunger.\u201d</p>
<p><strong>Bread and dignity<br></strong>Bread lines have turned into
scenes of epic endurance. One survivor of a massacre during aid
distribution said: \u201cWe knew the planes were watching us, but we went
anyway. We\u2019d rather die seeking a dignified bite than stretch our hand
to the enemy.\u201d</p>
<p>International relief organizations, led by the World Food Program,
have described what\u2019s happening in Gaza as the first fully documented
famine in decades.</p>
<p>Still, the global community remains a spectator \u2014 issuing statements
of concern, while some states indirectly participate in the siege by
restricting aid or politically justifying the aggression.</p>
<p><strong>Silence is complicity<br></strong>Human rights advocate Salah
Abdel-Ati, head of the International Commission for Human Rights, told
the Palestinian Information Center: \u201cInternational law prohibits the use
of starvation as a weapon of war, but in Gaza this crime is being
committed daily.\u201d</p>
<p>He added: \u201cGlobal silence is not just complicity \u2014 it is partnership in the crime.\u201d</p>
<p><strong>The free pulse of Gaza<br></strong>In shelters, where displacement blends with fear, mothers speak of a different kind of pain.</p>
<p>Umm Youssef Nasr, a mother of five, says: \u201cMy children ask me, \u2018Mama,
when will we eat bread?\u2019 And I laugh and say, \u2018Soon\u2019\u2026 but I don\u2019t have
an answer. Sometimes I squeeze a lemon into water and give it to them as
a meal.\u201d</p>
<p>Gazan women are no longer just mothers \u2014 they are cooks from nothing,
doctors without medicine, and teachers in classrooms of pain. They are
the first line of defense for life.</p>
<p>From Nuseirat refugee camp, 22-year-old Ibrahim Farajallah recounts:
\u201cI received an offer from relatives in the West Bank to leave through
Rafah with help from an organization. But I refused. I said: I will live
and die here, on my land. Hunger is kinder than living exiled.\u201d</p>
<p>Ibrahim\u2019s words capture a pure Palestinian equation: Dying on the
homeland\u2019s soil is better than living in tents of political exile.</p>
<p>Hunger may linger, and bodies may be besieged, but Gaza has proven
that the spirit born from siege does not break. What the Israeli war
machine fails to understand is that people who endure starvation in
silence ignite their power in a moment of dignity.</p>
<p>Gaza today is not a victim of hunger, but a mirror reflecting the
moral fragility of this world. And it cries out to history: We will not
bow \u2014 even as we die of hunger.</p>
</div>
<br></div>