(I submitted the following op-ed to the Connecticut
Post (part of the Hearst chain) last week and so far it hasn’t run. I don’t
think it will. I mention the sacred cow, Israel, in a negative light, so that
generally means you’re in a no-go zone for most media. It doesn’t matter apparently
that tens of thousands of people, many children, will die of starvation because of Israel’s supremely
cruel blockade that prevents food from getting in to Gaza. Nope, can’t run it. The Connecticut Post is not alone. Did you see anything
about the Gaza famine on last weekend’s TV news shows? No. This terrible
catastrophe is being ignored. Shame on the media. I reprint here the op-ed
piece I submitted to the Post,)
END THE GAZA
BLOCKADE
By
Reginald Johnson
May 7,
2025
A human catastrophe is unfolding in Gaza.
For the
past two months, Israel has been imposing a blockade on the shipment of all food
and medical supplies into Gaza, where Israel has been fighting Hamas militants
since October of 2023. Trucks loaded with food are lined up at the Gaza border and
they can’t get in.
As a result,
some 1.1 million residents are trapped in the zone without any new food,
medicine and precious little water. Starvation is on the rise.
Just days ago,
officials of the Gaza Health Ministry reported that 57 Palestinians have died
of starvation. According to officials of the Gaza Government Media Office, some
3500 children under the age of five years “face imminent death by starvation”
and some 290,000 children are “on the brink of death.”
Olga Cherevko,
an aid worker with the United Nations Humanitarian Office (OCHA) in Gaza City
said, “Hungry people are scavenging in mounds of waste for anything that would
help them survive…I am seeing children and I am seeing elderly people rummaging
through these piles of trash not only in search of things to burn but also
things to eat daily.”
The CEOs of
12 major aid organizations, including Oxfam, Save the Children, CARE and NRC, said
in a joint statement recently that, “Survival itself is now slipping out of
reach and the humanitarian system is at a breaking point.”
Those
organizations said that they are ready to begin resupplying humanitarian aid if
they get the go-ahead, but they’re still waiting. Israeli officials say they
are imposing the blockade in order to put pressure on Hamas to release the
remaining Israeli hostages they have been holding.
But officials
of human rights organizations and the UN say Israel is violating international
law by imposing the blockade. “Any use of starvation of the civilian population
as a method of war constitutes a war crime and so do all forms of collective
punishment,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk.
If the
blockade is not ended very soon, a famine of catastrophic proportions will set
in for the people of Gaza. It is imperative now that world leaders, including
President Trump, European heads of state and others, put pressure on Israel to
end the blockade and allow desperately needed food supplies to reach Gaza.
Reginald Johnson is a freelance writer who
lives Bridgeport, CT
