The People’s Coalition on Food Sovereignty (PCFS)
The looming famine in Palestine signals the worsening global crisis in our food systems and agriculture.
Crisis-level hunger torments over 90% of Gaza’s 2.2 million population, with one out of every four projected to be verging on famine by February this year. Never have we seen in recent history such scale and speed of extreme hunger escalate to an entire population – not until the US-Israel genocidal war was waged.
Despite the resounding global clamor for a ceasefire, with a UN General Assembly resolution to boot, Israel’s war crimes and massacres in Gaza and the West Bank have only intensified with the shameless and unwavering support from the US and its allies. 85% of Gaza’s population has already been internally displaced, with 1.4 million staying in Rafah in imminent danger of Israel’s offensives. The killings have now reached 28,000, with seven out of every ten being women and children.
The deadly occupation has already destroyed 70% of Gaza’s fishing fleet, more than a quarter of its agricultural land, and 60% of Gaza’s civilian infrastructures including 150 agricultural greenhouses, which will expand as Israel’s buffer zone grabs lands along its borders. The total blockade and funding cuts by Israel’s allies to the UN Palestinian aid agency – Gaza’s largest aid provider that supplied food to 3 out of 4 Palestinians even before Israel launched its war – aggravated food scarcity. Gazans are subsisting on animal feed, grass, and polluted water. Earlier on, Israeli airstrikes deliberately targeted bakeries and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) burned food supplies. Inflation made food highly unaffordable where it is available. Even Palestinian crowds waiting for food aid were struck fire by Israeli military.
The situation in the West Bank is no different. Because of the war, resident Palestinians are struggling amid raids, drone strikes, and a reeling economy marked by Israel’s financial blockade and mobility restrictions, inflation, and unemployment. Farmlands are burned, bulldozed, or uprooted as Israeli settler attacks and militarization heighten, and about 7,000 farmers have experienced human rights violations in various forms. Olives, the West Bank’s main agricultural produce that also symbolizes the Palestinian national identity, were not reaped during the October-November harvest season – a big loss for the 160,00 Palestinians whose livelihoods depend on it. An estimated 100,000 Palestinian families from both the West Bank and Gaza plant olives as source of income.
At this point, it is not just Gaza whose food system is destroyed and food weaponized, as UN experts have recently affirmed. US, Israel, and their allies are stoking the flames in West Asia-North Africa (WANA) region. Strikes have been launched in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq – all in the guise of “counterterrorism” to quell the resistance of Iran and local people’s movements that have been suffering from economic and hunger crises because of decades-long US aggression. Yemen and Syria are hunger hotspots of “very high concern,” which means famine in these countries is just around the corner.
The same also threatens Asia as the US builds its military presence in the region under its Indo-Pacific Strategy to contend against China. The US-Israel genocidal war is setting precedence on how imperialist backed wars are inducing and weaponizing starvation in a world where almost 6 out of every 10 are the hungriest because of wars, occupations, and conflict. There is already an observed trend of increasing state-perpetrated bombings in rural communities especially in Asia, including Burma, India, Pakistan, and the Philippines to name a few.
The weakening global economy, reinforced by these wars, is crippling local food systems and raising food prices that impact the rest of the world. Yet warmonger states that mainly perpetrate global hunger – US being at the forefront – hypocritically preach to transform food systems toward Zero Hunger.
But all hope is not lost. Global solidarity never stopped and countries like South Africa have taken action, whose case has resulted in the historic ruling of the International Court of Justice that recognizes Israel’s war as genocide and demands its accountability for its war crimes. Protests have also continued in many countries in support of the Palestinian cause. More importantly, the people of Palestine are standing their ground against the Israeli occupation – an inspiration for many people’s movements that are also resisting imperialist war, aggression, and domination over our food systems and agriculture.
Likewise, we should also stand our ground and fight back in the face of the worsening food crisis. The People’s Coalition on Food Sovereignty (PCFS) calls to resist these imperialist maneuvers that starve the world and destroy our food systems, including the US-Israel genocidal war. We support the global call for a ceasefire to ease the hunger pangs of the Palestinian people at the immediate. We also reiterate that Israel should be held accountable for all its atrocities. Standing for the freedom of Palestine against the US-Israel occupation is ultimately a stand for people’s food sovereignty!
