When I learned about Gazans’ continued starvation, despite the ceasefire, I thought of this couplet from a 227-year-old poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, 

“Water, water, every where, / Nor any drop to drink”.

In the case of Gaza, Israel has allowed barely 145 food/aid trucks each day into the strip– less than 24% of what was agreed to in the ceasefire.  Israel won’t let three quarters of the food in.  But what is worse is Israel’s new policy that permits larger quantities of low-nutritional-value food, such as soft drinks, instant coffee, chocolate, processed snacks, and chips— instead of nutritious food. In fact Israel unfairly regulates quantities of flour, eggs, oil and chicken from the aid trucks while allowing in more snack foods. It is estimated that more than 85% of food aid entering Gaza is non-essential food.

Fadl Saad Abu Dalal, the owner of a grocery store in Nuseirat refugee camp, stocks his shelves with cookies and soft drinks.  He is furious about the lack of essential goods entering the enclave..  He explained, 

“These [non-essential] products mean nothing when people need flour or medicine. Israel deliberately allows large quantities of non-essential products and limited basic goods in a clear policy of managing the blockade in a new way.  People see these products but don’t buy them. There’s no cash, no salaries, no work.”

Abu Dalal said that more than half his customers walk in, ask the prices and leave without buying anything. He noted, “The market looks alive from the outside, but it is dead inside.”

Ismail Al-Thawabteh director Gaza’s government media office said Thursday,  

“This is a new kind of policy, managing hunger and engineering the crisis. We document every violation and report it to mediators and guarantor countries. Israel has violated the agreement 194 times so far, and its aircraft still fly over our heads despite the ceasefire.” 

This new wrinkle is part of Israel’s 20-year-old policy of severely restricting food that entered Gaza by truck. Israel has admitted the restrictions were to pressure Hamas by making Palestinians’ lives “difficult.”   In 2006, Israeli senior government advisor Dov Weisglass said: 

“The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.”

At that time Israeli officials had “scientifically” determined that consuming 2,279 calories per day were enough to keep Gazans alive.  In the last year of Israel’s catastrophic war on Gaza, most Gazans are literally starving, often consuming fewer than 400 calories a day– 17% of the food Israel allowed in for the last 18 years.  As of early September, 361 Palestinians died of starvation including 130 children.  

The call to support Israel “is a fight to death for Jews and a fight that Jews alone have to wage.” 

Canadian physician Philip Berger in this scurrilous article  here 

Perhaps we should ask a Canadian doctor what can be done?!

Don’t bother to ask members of the private Facebook group,  ‘Canadian Jewish Physicians’— 555 Toronto-area Jewish doctors affiliated with University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine.  The very name – Canadian Jewish Physicians is unspeakably arrogant and draws attention to the fact that they feel they are distinct and better than the myriad of Canadian humanitarian doctors in HAP (Heath Workers Alliance for Palestine) for instance who actually want to stop the genocide —  and save Palestinians’ lives. 

Instead, the Canadian Jewish Physicians claim they have

“the Zionist impulse to defend themselves, their people, their state, their highest ideals and Western civilization”

I think that means they condemn anyone especially fellow Jews who support Gaza.  The 555 doctors’ idea of protecting “western civilization” is patently colonial and racist.  

One of the “Canadian Jewish Physicians,” Dr Philip Berger, notes (with no evidence at all) that the demands of pro-Palestinian activists are “a call for the murder of Jews.”  Berger “understands the need right now to empower Jews.”   He says this “is a fight to death for Jews and a fight that Jews alone have to wage.”  What? This is absurd; there is not one scintilla of evidence that there is any demand to kill or even punish Canadian Jews.   Pure bunk. Pure frenzy.

More than two million Palestinian hostages in Gaza are being held behind borders, at gunpoint by Israel.  They have little to no access to decent food and clean water, no fuel for winter, and live under tents that are falling apart.  Israel’s genocide means there are virtually no medicines; there are destroyed hospitals, severely limited health care, no help for the elderly or disabled– as most wheelchairs have been broken or lie under the rubble, no schools for children, and more than 800 mosques (and three churches) deliberately destroyed.  

The Canadian Medical Association (CMA) “worried” about starvation of people in Gaza and donated $250,000 to two charities, UNICEF, and to Action Against Hunger. Still, it took 22 months for the CMA to decide to take action against Israel’s forced starvation. 

Giving to charity is one thing – in this case it is little more than a tip of the hat.  Starvation in Gaza is real – the most serious health threat to children, the elderly and women.  That combined with ongoing bombings of civilians and torture of jailed Palestinians shows the world that Israel’s victims are still not safe. 

Photo at the Top: ‘Essential items like flour, cooking oil, eggs, meat, and chicken are rare or almost unavailable,’ Palestinian shop owner says. Photo published here,