Veterans & Allies Fast for Gaza: 40 Days of Solidarity and Compassion

ACTIVISM, 14 Jul 2025

Mike Ferner | Veterans For Peace - TRANSCEND Media Service

Press Conference and Die-In for end of Veterans and Allies Fast for Gaza
(Image by Ellen Davidson)

Whenever you get to thinking that people lack compassion and generally can’t be trusted with the planet, I recommend you read this article.

7 Jul 2025 – On 22 May 2025, several members of Veterans For Peace, along with some allies, kicked off the 40-day, 250-calorie/day “Veterans & Allies Fast for Gaza.” At the core were a handful of VFP members who travelled to New York to hold a witness in front of the U.S. Mission to the UN, across the street from UN headquarters.  Hundreds of people began signing up to participate around the country, and as it turns out, also in Italy, Germany, Ireland, Canada, Hong Kong and Australia.  We’re also finding out there are many more participants, likely double the 800 people registered, who have joined the fast. People were encouraged to participate for any length of time, doing the type of fast they chose.

Only a week into the effort, I emailed those registered to thank them, ask where they were from and what kind of fast they were doing since we neglected to put those questions on the sign-up form.

Repliers wrote briefly about their motivation and the communities formed around the fast. People discovered it was a way to lessen the pain, anger and frustration they felt from the live-streamed genocide in Gaza, while enjoying the blessings found in Dr. King’s “Beloved Community.”

No more introduction is needed.  Here are excerpts from the responses.

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Don, from St. Louis:

I’m a 66yo Navy vet with spec dietary requirements. So instead of fasting food, I am fasting all rx and otc pain relievers for 40 days. I started at the beginning.

***

Tony, from Utah:

I am 84 years old. I started the fast on May 22 and plan to fast for 40 days. I will take Fathers’ Day off, so I will go one day longer.

***

Mike, from Cincinnati:

Thank you so much for inviting us to the fast. It is very meaningful to us.

I’m doing the full 40 days and fasting all day with only water and coffee, eating one meal at night.

Yesterday we had friends over for a Buddhist meditation, reflecting on Gaza, the fast and how it is connecting us to you all in NYC and all of the other fasting participants and how much it is bringing awareness to the terrible plight of the citizens of Gaza and Palestine. We reflected on how we are connected together not just by communication but physically in our lives.

I am going on a 6 day Buddhist retreat and am dedicating all the Merits from that to support you all and bring about our demands for this fast.

***

Maggie, from Belfast

I am in Belfast, Northern Ireland & I am fasting with you, along with some other folks from my church.

My pattern is every other day, and on fasting days I cut down significantly on my normal meals. Mainly veg/ fruit/ yoghurt. Still I am so aware I am so fortunate to have those things and always know where my next good meal is coming from.

God bless you all richly. The news coming from Gaza & the West Bank is unendingly tragic, but we pray on, & fast so we can understand a little of what our brothers and sisters in Palestine are experiencing.

With love and every good blessing to you

***

Leah, from Cambridge MA

I’m doing the whole 40 days. I’ve opted for a timed fast, like Ramadan, fasting all day with one meal at night. And I’ve reached out to friends to try to create a chain. So far, three friends have each signed up for a few days, and on those days they fast in my place.

Thanks for everything.

***

Joyce, from Akron

3 of us are doing 40 40-day fast. I am doing 250 for the first 14 days and 600 calories for remainder of time because I lost 20 lbs in the first 2 weeks and am 78 years old

***

Col. Ann Wright

Beautiful comments for the noble FAST for Gaza!  Everyone in the Gaza Flotilla family, which includes most of you, thank you so very much….as of course, to the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank!!!

***

Trish, from Maine

I hope this letter finds you and all the other fasters there healthy, strong, and determined!

My name is Patricia Corkins and I am a retired Army 1SG. I have a small farm here in Maine and spend much of my free time making banners and signs for MVPR (Maine Voices for Palestinian Rights) and attending protests.

I am doing the 250-calorie fast, eating a single meal after sundown. It is Day 16 and I have lost 13lb, 8% of my body weight. My daughter works full time and is doing a 750-calorie fast, also Ramadan style. We both plan to continue until Day 40 if possible.

The rest of our crew are doing all of the various fasts. Little groups have formed to cover the days according to what each person can do. As a coalition, we plan to run, walk or crawl to the end and then begin the next stage, whatever that might be.

We have a chat set up for daily check-ins, recipe exchange, health tips,  and announcements of anything going on to lift this action. We make contact with the local media and have had multiple interviews regarding our commitment.

We have held stand-outs, silent matches, a die-in (20 of us got arrested at that one and we got a lot of local coverage!) and, of course, we have spread the word to family, friends, and personal social media. We have a rally and march on 8 June in Bangor for ‘Let Gaza Live’ with speakers including an elected official and at least 2 fasters.

I am honored to be standing with you and with Gaza! Free Palestine!

***

Mary Grace

I share your vision of a world beyond war, where fear, ego and power of money do not determine our lives, Did not decimate Hope for those living on the peripheries of Uncaring societies.

I had about 170 cal this morning but will likely break my fast today, as I retreat with people with disabilities today… I know myself well enough to know my own foibles and limitations.

Tonight I’ll begin again.

Mercy.

Step-by-step.

***

Charlie from ??

After reading your article, I would like to add another voice in support of the fast – here committed to a 40-day “Catholic” fast, I.e., one full meal a day plus two other meatless meals, together not equalling a full meal.  This 84 yo old stomach doesn’t support skipping a meal.  Your article is leading me to rethink my hesitancy to spread the word about it.

***

Janette from Germany

I am writing from Germany, where I do the fasting since the beginning.
From tomorrow on, I will switch every day with a friend, she is the only
one who wants to join. But I also wrote an article for Swiss
anthroposophical magazine, which will be published this week. It tells
about the campaign and why I joined.
Thanks for organizing the fast!

***

Mother Debbi, Indiana

Thank you everyone.

In His love and mine,

Mother Debbi

“Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourself were suffering.” (Hebrews 13:3)

***

Joshua, Edmonton, Alberta

Sending you good wishes and strength for the remaining days of the fast. We are a small cluster of 16 doing the fast in amiskwaciwâskahikan (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada).

Is there any opportunity during this fast for different people in different places to connect with each other and find out how we can amplify each other’s efforts on our socials or in other ways? I would be happy to set up a Zoom video call if people want to meet that way, or maybe there’s another idea. Even if it’s just a one-time conversation there’s so much I get from learning how other people are doing things, and what kinds of creative actions people are taking.

***

Gemma from Illinois

Thank you! I am fasting from food from 10am – 4pm each day since I joined. I am a member of Rev Dr Beth Johnson’s congregation.

***

Bikshan Cheng, Hong Kong

Thank you for your information and your effort to host such a great event! I am fasting from Hong Kong since there is no such sympathy over the Gaza genocide in my locals. I gathered a small group of another 3 trying out a chain fast for 40 days as well. Attached a picture of us having our first day fast, me, on the far left. In case we were too hungry, we were allowed to drink some juice. In the picture, we were holding two booklets just brought from a tiny exhibition featuring Palestinian posters documenting the year-long injustice and atrocities. The poster exhibition was banned in a Hong Kong book fair last year. However, this year, the project manager tried a private gallery to launch it. “Visit Palestine” Poster Exhibition, which was initiated by several Japanese poster collectors, went on its roadshow in Japan.

Many thanks to you and your teams. May God bless you

***

Rula from ???

Your efforts are commendable we so much appreciate this initiative to have solidarity with those starving. It makes me so angry to see rich Arab countries feasting in the name of Adha celebration, disregarding their brothers and sisters in Gaza. What is going on is unbelievable, it gives me hope to see what people like you are trying. I started fasting when i saw your announcement last week, I am hoping to accomplish 38 days where I am eating 500-600 calories a day split between two small meals, with intermittent fasting (nothing between 6pm and noon next day). Wish i could do more but work load and home responsibilities remind me to take care of my needs in reasonable manner.

All the best

Rula (Lebanese-American pediatrician)

***

Duane from Harmony, MN

Fasting with Chapters 27(MNPLS/St.Paul) & Redwing, MN. I’ve been fasting the whole time

***

Steve from Bend OR

Hats off to you and your fellow demonstrators for this bold and visible move. A true act of humanitarianism, not that I would expect anything less.

I’ve donated to a number different humanitarian relief efforts (not the disastrous U.S./Israeli effort) and started a 30+/- fast today. Mine is rather wimpy (eliminating a meal a day) compared to you guys, but trying to do my bit.

***

Nasreen, S. Africa

I’m Nasreen from South Africa and I started the fast before I even registered… but have not kept count… I will be continuing until aid is let into Gaza…
I’m doing the Ramadan fast sunrise to sunset.

***

Ari, from Corvallis OR

I was in AFJROTC in high school in the 1980s. Now I’m a clinical social worker, mental health therapist, and Jewish / interdenominational parachaplain.

My husband, Dr. Richard Campbell, PhD., is an Army veteran (1955 – 1963) whose grandparents and cousins were burned alive for being Jewish in January of 1942.

He is 93-yo now and not fasting, yet very supportive of me doing so. I am on day eight, and in for the long haul. I have a friend willing to be next in the chain should I not be able to continue.

Given that my own Israeli relatives were nearly killed on Oct. 7 AND that I have been providing around-the-clock mental health and emotional support since Sept. to 29-yo Gazan ER physician, Dr. Ali Tahrawi, I feel it critical to support your efforts toward a ceasefire and arms embargo of Israel. I want Palestinians to thrive in safety, and the release of both Israeli and Palestinian captives/detainees.

Thank you for this opportunity to join forces with you.

***

Additional heartfelt, eloquent words came from two people who wrote longer responses.

The first was from Kathy Kelly, a veteran of many such fasts for peace, who agreed to make her 94-pound frame go through one more.

When the Fast for Gaza began, we had just learned that an Israeli airstrike, using weapons almost certainly provided by the U.S., had killed all but one of Dr. Ala al-Najjar’s nine children, and gravely injured her spouse, Dr. Hamdi al-Najjar.  Two weeks later, he died.

Instead of stopping Israel’s genocide, major governments partnered with Israel. Day after day, the carnage continues. The fast has helped us insist that peace and justice is possible; it starts with trying to protect the lives of innocent people while refusing, utterly refusing, to condone child sacrifice.

Another was from Leah Hager Cohen, who heard of the fast the day before it began and joined it. In a beautiful essay, “The Moral Imperative To Show Up Anyway,” she described how Simone Weil died in 1943 at 34 years of age.

“She died in a sanitarium near London after months of refusing to consume more calories a day than the rations allowed her comrades in occupied Europe.

For Weil, these actions seem to have been less about their utility than about a profound, spiritual call to pay attention. “Attention,” she famously wrote, “taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love.”

I am as moved by the stubborn fervor of her need to act as I am unsettled by the extremity of her actions. And I continue to puzzle over the questions raised by her life and death, among them: What good is self-deprivation?

I do know that numbness, whether caused by compassion fatigue or a sense that our efforts are futile, is of no use to anyone. As new horrors dominate the headlines and competing tragedies mount, we must guard against the danger of becoming numb. One effect of fasting is that it keeps me constantly somatically uncomfortable. Although my hunger pangs are paltry beside the agony of those enduring forced starvation, they function as a quickening agent, a pricker keeping me awake. They are an antidote to numbness. An invitation to be creative, to lift up my head, to look to what others are doing.

For most of us, most of the time, it is a bitter fact that in the face of great suffering there is little we can do. When that suffering is human-wrought and inflicted by the mighty, how can those of us who do not individually wield much power respond?

We can join together, to march and donate and boycott and sing and write letters and give testimony and carry signs and hold hands and pitch tents and fill the public square — city halls, train stations, lunch counters, plazas, parks, intersections, bridges — with our bodies. For most of us, in the end, our bodies — our brains and our hearts, yes, but also the poor, rude matter of our sinew and blood and bones — are what we have to offer. It’s the one thing we all possess, the one thing we can all choose to put on the line to try to heal what’s broken.”

The 40-day Veterans & Allies Fast for Gaza ended with a bang on June 30 in New York. Activists in D.C. and elsewhere also held significant actions.  You can see the videos and photos here.

Those of us who participated in the fast felt connected to a rare, compassionate and sometimes euphoric community of good souls who cared deeply and were richly rewarded.  The suffering persists and so will we!

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Mike Ferner was one of the organizers of the Veterans & Allies Fast for Gaza and a long time member of Veterans For Peace. He fasted with the VFP contingent at the U.N. but only for 21 days before being admitted to the Manhattan V.A. hospital to correct a dangerous electrolyte imbalance due to underlying health conditions. mike@veteransforpeace.org

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 14 Jul 2025.

Anticopyright: Editorials and articles originated on TMS may be freely reprinted, disseminated, translated and used as background material, provided an acknowledgement and link to the source, TMS: Veterans & Allies Fast for Gaza: 40 Days of Solidarity and Compassion, is included. Thank you.

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