Media ignores starving children in Gaza

 

  ­(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

 

 

"Survival itself is now slipping out of reach"

  By Reginald Johnson

   Commentary

 There is a humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Palestine.

 Hundreds of thousands of people could die from lack of food due to an Israeli blockade.

 Will the world stand by and let this happen?

This is a post from the website "Drop Site News":

 "URGENT: Multiple credible sources – including UN agencies, 12 major international NGOs, and journalists on the ground – report that most of Gaza’s 2.2 million people are now surviving on just one meal per day or less due to Israel’s total blockade on food and other essentials since March 2.

 The CEOs of 12 major aid organizations, including Oxfam, Save the Children, CARE, NRC, and others, said in a joint statement on April 17, 2025:

 'Survival itself is now slipping out of reach and the humanitarian system is at breaking point.

 'Every single person in Gaza is relying on humanitarian aid to survive. That lifeline has been completely cut off since a blockade on all aid supplies was imposed by Israeli authorities on 2 March.

 'We have supplies ready. We have trained medical staff. We have the expertise. What we don’t have is the access – or the guarantee by Israeli authorities that our teams can safely do their job.' " 

  There needs to be a massive outcry against Israel's cruel blockade. People must demand that it be lifted --- immediately. We cannot let a mass starvation event take place on our watch.

 Call the White House comment line at 202-456-1111 and make your voice heard.  Also call the Capitol Switchboard, at 202-224-3121 and ask to be connected to your members of Congress in the House and Senate. Tell them you want them to call for an end to the Israeli blockade and an end to the vicious war against Gaza. If they won't agree to do this, say you will vote against them in the next election.

 One other suggestion. This is from Facebook friend Mary Anne Doty: "Email the Israeli embassy and demand they stop the deliberate starvation of 2.2 million human beings in Gaza. Consular@washington.mfa.gov.i"

Protesters demand end to US blockade of Cuba

 

 By Reginald Johnson

 

   NEW HAVEN --- Daily news reports out of Miami have shown Cuban-Americans waving flags and marching loudly in support of the anti-government protests in Cuba.

 Demonstrators have denounced Cuban leaders for allegedly ruining the economy of Cuba and openly call for the United States to invade the island and topple the communist regime.

  Getting little attention from the media have been demonstrations in the US expressing support for Cuba’s government and demanding that the United States end its hostile policy towards the Caribbean nation.

 One of those rallies took place in New Haven last week, where a group of about a dozen activists marched to the office of Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn and urged her to lobby for relaxing harmful sanctions against Cuba and ending the 60-year-old trade embargo against Cuba.

  “The protest was very good,’ said Henry Lowendorf, chair of Greater New Haven Peace Council. “We had a couple of Cuban flags and we had one sign that said “Stop the Embargo --- Stop the Blockade.”

  A representative from DeLauro’s office came out and listened to the group make their case for changing American policy towards Cuba.

 “We pointed out that Rosa had signed a letter in March of this year along with 78 other members of Congress calling on President Biden to get rid all these restrictions, restrictions which Trump generated and pursue normalization of relations,” said Lowendorf.

  “But Biden has not done that,”  he said, adding that the president has instead “doubled-down” on the Trump sanctions, which include prohibiting the mailing of remittances from Cuban families in the US to their relatives in Cuba and closing down US tourism to the nation.

 Those sanctions have had a devastating effect on the Cuban economy.

 The end of the congressional letter called for an end to the US trade embargo in effect since 1961 --- one of the longest-standing trade embargoes in history.

  The blockade has crippled the ability of the Cuban government to trade with other nations and obtain badly-needed food and medical supplies. Right now, the government is unable to administer COVID vaccines due to a lack of syringes.

 “We need to take the knee of the United States off the neck of the Cuban people, because we’re asphyxiating them,” said Lowendorf. “This is Derek Chauvin on George Floyd on an international level.”

  Lowendorf said the group wants DeLauro “to follow up on the letter, pressure the White House and publicly announce that she’s done this. There’s no reason why she should not do a news release on this.”

  

Scene from Havana, Cuba. The nation has been under economic siege by the US for 60 years. (Photo from cubaeducationaltravel.com) 

 The rally also saw remarks by a Cuban who lives in the US and is “very much opposed to the embargo and efforts to destroy the Cuban people,” said Lowendorf.

  Also speaking was John Lugo, of Unidad Latina en Accion, an immigrant rights group. Speaking in Spanish, Lugo  “related what’s happening in Cuba and what’s happening elsewhere in Latin America from the point of view of immigrants who have to leave their country often because of actions that the United States takes that puts them in a position of either to flee or to die.”

  Another rally supporting Cuba will take place this Thursday at the federal building at 141 Church Street at 4:30 PM.