As I look across the park from my apartment, I see a construction crane on a building site a few streets away.  Four 30-plus- storey concrete apartment towers are going up on one small city block here in central Halifax.  

Now I look at this photo in Gaza. 

Turns out that the Israel military are mounting an automatic machine guns, that can be programmed to shoot live rounds of ammunition, on top of construction cranes . The machine gun doesn’t fire a single shot, but rather a large volley of bullets. If you need one shot to hit one person, the other shots will hit others behind him or her.  

According to this site on Instagram, 

“The Israeli occupation army has installed an automatic machine gun on a crane east of Al-Zaytoun neighborhood in Gaza City, firing at anyone who moves, with quadcopter drones hovering overhead to identify targets. This comes after the forced evacuation of eastern Al-Zaytoun, declared a ‘red zone’ on June 29, 2025, leaving many families trapped without safe refuge.”  

Israel has drawn “red zones” around  282.8 square kilometers  (78%) of Gaza, out of a total 364.8 square kilometers, to indicate extreme danger (for whom?). So almost two million displaced Palestinians are now jammed into less than 25% of the already overcrowded territory.  

Similar automated weapon systems have been reported at Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) sites, locations promoted by Israel and the U.S. as safe aid zones, where more than 1,000 civilians have been shot after crossing red lines. According to Quds News Network,

“These systems are part of the occupation’s broader campaign to seize Gaza City and forcibly transfer Palestinians into the south into concentration camps, an idea explicitly endorsed by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Katz.”

Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed, and thousands injured when trapped or kettled  Palestinians are shot and killed as they wait desperately for food. 

Doctors Without Borders (Medecins sans Frontieres-MSF) called this method of “crowd control” at the GHF’s aid distribution sites “slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid”.

This is the equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel at a carnival. 

“Like shooting fish in a barrel…”

There are always Israeli tanks positioned along the perimeter of the kettling area that pens in thousands of Palestinian men, women and children waiting for food.  Just ten days ago, the U.N. food agency accused Israel of using tanks, snipers and other weapons to fire on a crowd of Palestinians seeking food aid, in what Gaza’s Health Ministry said was one of the deadliest days for aid-seekers in over 21 months of war.  Israeli forces– and those in GHF– killed more than 80 civilians.   The Israeli military has said it fired warning shots “to remove an immediate threat.”   What threat? the threat of emaciated men and women, or skeletal children who haven’t had a slice of chicken or any meat for five months?

Price of food in Gaza

Today’s  prices for food staples in Gaza are astronomical,  if anything can be found in a market or roadside stand.  Palestinians teetering on starvation are moving heaven and earth to make bread—flat bread.  But when Fidaa Abu Ummayra, age 55,  who lives in Al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza’s north thought buying a large sack of flour for 90 Euros ($145 Canadian) was a bargain, but the sack was filled with “mould and worms”. “If only I hadn’t bought it,” she lamented, “The bread was disgusting.”

Tasnim Abu Matar in Gaza City explains, “We count and calculate everything our children eat, and divide up the bread to make it last for days,” The 50-year-old added.“We can’t take it any more. We are literally dying of hunger.”

Here’s a look at current prices for one kilogram of staple food items —bear in mind, before Israel stopped allowing most food and aid into Gaza, after Israel broke the ceasefire on 2 March 2025, a 25 kg bag of flour cost  €10 (or $16 Canadian).  

Malnutrition is the first sign. Starvation is cumulative.  Children and the elderly will die more easily than younger people because there is a quicker decline to death for those at the most risk.  Medical professionals in Gaza and beyond say that when the body doesn’t receive adequate nutrition, it first draws on stored glucose and then fat reserves for energy. When these reserves are depleted, the body begins breaking down muscle tissue for protein. Protein is essential for organ function. When the body doesn’t receive adequate nutrition, it draws on stored glucose, then fat reserves for energy. As these reserves are exhausted, the body begins breaking down muscle tissue for protein as it’s necessary for organ function.  From this NPR site I learned that

• Organ damage: can be caused by long term starvation. Organs such as liver, kidneys and heart become overworked if they don’t have the fuel and nutrition.
• Starving people are susceptible to infections, flus, and other diseases.
• With little to no food, people lose memory, and their cognitive functions don’t work well; they become apathetic and tired all the time.

Netanyahu and other leading lights in Israel say there is no starvation. Canada’s “official” Jews continue to be silent, and cling to Israel’s line. Will not one rabbi or official in Canada speak out?

The voice of the official or establishment Canadian Jews is CIJA — the main story on CIJA’s site yesterday was “Ontario Classrooms Must be Safe for Jewish Students.” B’nai Brith, a right-wing but still acceptable Jewish institution, on their website yesterday “Supports Class Action Lawsuit Against McGill”. And the other member of the establishment troika, the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre’s major news flash yesterday was “Antisemitism in Ontario schools ‘dire’ and underreported”. I guess that tells us about the Jewish community’s priorities.

Photo at the top: Gaza is suffering ‘man-made… mass starvation’, according to the head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus; this photo appeared in AL-Monitor. (credit: Omar AL-QATTAA)