All the dire predictions at the time Israel banned the UN Relief and Works Agency in January 2025 have come to pass.

Of its Israeli/American replacement, the GHF, Alex de Waal writes: “We saw famine in Biafra and Ethiopia. In the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s ‘aid distribution system’ we see an attempt to destroy a whole society.” He says “The social breakdown that we are witnessing, the degrading of human beings, is not a byproduct of the harm that Israel is inflicting. That’s the central element of the crime: destroying Palestinian society. The government of Israel shows no indication that it cares in the slightest whether Palestinians live or die. It wants to avoid the stigma of being accused of starvation and genocide, and the GHF is its current alibi. Let’s not be fooled.”

Médecins Sans Frontières describes the GHF distribution mechanism as a system of institutionalised starvation and dehumanisation. It reports that, “Over a seven-week period in June and July, 2025, MSF staff treated 174 people for gunshot wounds originating from the GHF sites. The vast majority of those injured — 96% — were young men. This reflects a grim survival strategy: families are sending the youngest and fittest to retrieve food.The injured who arrive in our clinics are normally covered in sand and dust from time spent lying on the ground while taking cover from bullets. A significant number of injured patients coming from the Khan Younis distribution centre (SDS3) had gunshot wounds to the lower limbs. The anatomical precision of these injuries strongly suggests intentional targeting of people within the distribution sites, rather than accidental or indiscriminate fire.”

I watch a man being interviewed on one of our public broadcasters speak about Palestinians in Gaza. “They are parasites,” he says." They have been living on aid for decades." And his words hurt. There have been countless lies and smears that hurt over the past two years but those words hurt so much. The interviewer let the claim go unchallenged. And in my mind, I scream at the interviewer, “Ask him, what would you do if you were kept behind a fence, your crops sprayed with toxic chemicals, your fishing restricted, your resources stolen, your daily calories controlled, your every move and communication spied on, and from time to time, your jailer flew over you, bombing homes and fishing boats and farms, and killing your kith and kin? Wouldn’t you, too, need aid?” Only some of the lucky few, men over 40 years old, were allowed to go and work in Israel, laying bricks and washing dishes for their jailers. I remember reading an interview with a Palestinian youth. “What do you do?” “I am waiting to turn 40”. Palestinians lost their land and their liberty. They have been dehumanised and their killing has been normalised. And now that man on TV calls them parasites. And the interviewer does not challenge him. And it hurts.

Ahmad Ibsais writes, “.. this manufactured famine did not emerge in a vacuum. It is the culmination of a 77-year system designed to transform a self-sufficient agricultural society into an aid-dependent population stripped of dignity and agency. To understand Gaza’s current starvation, we must trace the institutional history of how humanitarian aid itself became a weapon of control. Before 1948, Palestine was a thriving agricultural economy and net exporter of citrus, with renowned soap production and glass manufacturing contributing millions to the region’s GDP. Palestinian farmers were stewards of their own land, labor, and economically self-sufficient and politically autonomous.

“…The dependency wasn’t just economic, it was psychological. By 2019, 60% of Palestinian students in Gaza reported feeling hopeless about their futures, citing the aid-dependent economy and siege as factors. The international aid system inadvertently created ‘learned helplessness’, a sense of powerlessness arising from persistent trauma and lack of control over basic needs.” Ibsais reminds us that, ‘There is a story told by every aid truck. It is not one of generosity, but of dependency imposed. It says: you will eat what we allow. You will thank us for your crumbs. You will survive, but only if you forget who made you starve. But our people do not forget. Palestinians endure, not because they are strong, but because they have no choice…”

I watch the symbolic airdrops and the ensuing fights over a bag of flour. And I think of the endless trucks at the gates that Israel is refusing to let in. And no world power is able or willing to “make” Israel open the gates. Netanyahu says, “There is no starvation in Gaza. We are feeding our enemies” and his words are reported around the world without the context that “under international humanitarian law, Israel as the occupying power has binding obligations to the people under its control. It has to protect civilians and provide them with essential services”. I watch a boy with a bag of flour crying joyfully, “Look mother. Look what I got for you. A bag of flour”, and I wonder how she’ll make bread without clean water and without fuel. Will she make a fire by burning garbage or a plastic bottle and feed her children in the midst of toxic fumes, courtesy of the Israeli siege?

I watch a Palestinian woman boiling in water some herbs she found in the rubble of a bombed building. She tells her emaciated children that it’s chicken soup. What do we know of hunger? We who change cafes because the good barista left. We who eat nothing but the best artisan bread, the perfect burrata, the highest cacao count dark chocolate, and the lowest acidity extra virgin olive oil. How many of us have ever been really hungry? Not on-a-diet hungry, but starving and unable to find a piece of bread for days?

Keir Starmer says the Israeli Government’s decision to further escalate its offensive in Gaza is wrong. English is not my mother tongue but even to my non-native ears, the word “wrong”, in the context of starving a population, sounds wrong. I would have thought “shameless” or “immoral” or “outrageous”, would have been the appropriate adjective to use.

I look at the pictures in  Peter Kennard’s Gaza exhibition in Edinburgh – in pictures and I stop at one titled “Armed Starvation”. In the old, old days, I would have reflected on the artistic merit of the work, noticed the composition and the clever juxtaposition. But those days are gone. Nowadays, I just gaze at the picture, numb with grief.

In May, 2024, I wrote Weeping for the children in Gaza: “..I weep for their children of Gaza. Children who are wondering whether they will be alive tomorrow instead of thinking ‘When I grow up, I would like to be..’, children who are searching for wood so that Mama can make a fire, when they should be at school. Children who want their legs back. Children who have seen countless dead bodies instead of hearing the adults discuss whether they are old enough to be taken to ‘grandpa’s funeral’. Children who are worried about waking up under the rubble instead of worrying about an overdue homework assignment. Children whose laughter has been extinguished.” At the time, I thought it could not get any worse. Surely, the world would not stand by and let the children’s suffering continue. But here we are, and here they are. A year later, thousands of these children have been killed. Of the remaining ones, some are amputees, some are orphans, a majority are starving, and the rest are roaming their land, rendered dystopian by Israeli bombs, in search of water and anything to eat.

I wonder where the religious leaders are. Those strong influencers, who mobilise and raise their voices whenever issues such as “abortion” or “gays” threaten their moral compass. Where are they, now that children are being starved and a people are being erased? With few exceptions, mostly Jewish Rabbis, the clergy are silent, and their moral compasses are safely tucked in the bottom drawers of their desks.

I watch the speeches at the UN. Passionate words and genuine concern for the besieged Palestinians. Riyad Mansour’s distress is palpable. And I dare to hope. But my hopes and the hopes of millions are crushed by a single gesture, the raised arm of the US ambassador to the UN Security Council. And more Palestinian children starve while tons of food rot in the heat outside the locked gates. And I wonder what level of inhumanity would make these US ambassadors keep their arms by their sides and abstain.

I recall exhibitions I saw years ago. Perhaps one day there will be an exhibition of photographs of the raised arms of successive US ambassadors to the UN Security Council. All, decent men and women who loved their children and pampered their pets. Just following the directions of their government. Serving the strategic interests of the Empire. Perhaps there will also be an exhibition of a curated selection of headlines from the complicit media. The media that Italians accurately describe as “i giornali dei padroni”. But by then it will be too late for the Palestinians of Gaza.

And I ponder the meaning of civilisation. Is it putting on our finery and attending first night openings of exhibitions documenting our failure to protect the weak and the oppressed? Is it sipping champagne while we stroll among paintings depicting unspeakable crimes inflicted on our fellow humans? How many Guernicas would it take for us to stop the horror before it is too late for the victims? Before all that is left of their lives, dreams and laughter are pictures for an exhibition?

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.