{"id":296459,"date":"2025-06-09T12:00:44","date_gmt":"2025-06-09T11:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=296459"},"modified":"2025-05-31T04:25:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-31T03:25:09","slug":"us-veterans-fast-against-israels-starvation-of-gaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2025\/06\/us-veterans-fast-against-israels-starvation-of-gaza\/","title":{"rendered":"US Veterans Fast against Israel\u2019s Starvation of Gaza"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Members of Veterans For Peace begin the first week of a 40-day fast in support of Gaza on 27 May 2025. (Veterans for Peace via X)<\/p><\/div>\n

Fasters are demanding full humanitarian aid to Gaza under U.N. authority and an end to U.S. weapons shipments to Israel.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

30 May 2025\u00a0<\/em>– As the death toll of Palestinians continues to rise and more than a half a million people in Gaza are on the brink of famine<\/a>, U.S.-based Veterans For Peace and several allied organizations have launched a 40-day \u201cFast for Gaza<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

From May 22 to June 30, 600 people in the U.S. and abroad are fasting and demanding full humanitarian aid to Gaza under U.N. authority and an end to U.S. weapons shipments to Israel.<\/p>\n

Mary Kelly Gardner, a teacher from Santa Cruz, California, told she joined the fast in memory of her late father, a service member in Vietnam who \u201cstaunchly opposed U.S. militarism.\u201d<\/p>\n

He opposed \u201cthe so-called \u2018war on terror\u2019 and ongoing U.S. violence against Middle Eastern countries,\u201d she said. Gardner is limiting herself to 250 calories for the first 10 days of the fast. \u201cThen I will switch to fasting during daylight (as Muslims observing Ramadan do).\u201d<\/p>\n

Palestinians in Gaza are being forced to survive on 245 calories per day<\/a>; 250 calories daily is considered a starvation diet, as the body breaks down muscle and other tissues. Prolonged fasting can cause dehydration, heart problems, kidney failure and even death.<\/p>\n

Gardner is distressed because her \u201ctax dollars are being used to fund this horrific violence\u201d (which, she noted, constitutes genocide) \u201cin the form of weapons shipments.\u201d She feels the need to speak out.<\/p>\n

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Jabalia camp destruction by Israel in Gaza, October 2024. (Al Jazeera\/Wikimedia Commons)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Gardner said her goals are to \u201cget people\u2019s attention with a meaningful action\u201d and \u201cengage in a practice that challenges me to be more personally present with the human suffering taking place in Gaza.\u201d She is \u201cintentionally causing myself some discomfort and inconvenience,\u201d yet \u201cnot harming myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

For 11 weeks, using starvation as a weapon of war<\/a>, Israel has blocked all food, medicine and other relief from entering the Gaza Strip, home to 2.1 million Palestinians. Now aid is trickling in under the auspices of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a delivery system established by the U.S. and Israel to bypass the U.N., provide a fig leaf of aid and blunt global outrage at Israel\u2019s starvation tactics.<\/p>\n

Risk of famine comes even as Israel intensifies its military campaign. On May 27, the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported<\/a> at least 54,056 people killed, including at least 17,400 children, and at least 123,129 people injured in Gaza since October 7, 2023.<\/p>\n

On the sixth day of the fast, Kathy Kelly, board president of World BEYOND War, told:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cOn day 6 of the fast, limiting ourselves to 250 calories per day helps us focus on Gazans with no relief in sight. But Palestinians face intense risks of aerial attacks, sniper assaults, housing demolition, forcible displacement and genocidal threats from Israel and its allies to eradicate them.<\/p>\n

On day 6 of the fast, I am wondering about Ron Feiner, the Israeli reservist sent to prison three days ago for refusal to go to Gaza. How is he faring? He told the judge who sentenced him to 20 days in prison that he couldn\u2019t cooperate with Prime Minister Netanyahu\u2019s sabotage of ceasefire agreements. We acutely need his witness. I\u2019m hungry for solidarity.<\/p>\n

On day 6 of the fast, we\u2019re remembering the names and ages of Dr. Alaa al-Najjar\u2019s children. Their charred corpses came to her as she worked a shift in the pediatric ward of Gaza\u2019s Khan Younis hospital. Dr. Hamdi al-Najjar, her spouse, was gravely injured in the Israeli military attack on their home \u2014 an attack which left only one child surviving.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Kelly listed the names and ages of the al-Najjar children: Yahya, 12 years old; Rakan, 10 years old; Eve, 9 years old; Jubran, 8 years old; Ruslan, 7 years old; Reval, 5 years old; Sadin, 3 years old; Luqman, 2 years old; and Sidar, 6 months old. Eleven-year-old Adam, the sole surviving child, was critically injured in the Israeli bombing.<\/p>\n

US & Israel\u2019s Aid Plan Faces Rising Criticism \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The fast comes as the U.S. and Israel have launched a plan in concert with the GHF. The plan<\/a> is to be carried out by ex-Marines, former C.I.A. operatives, as well as mercenaries connected with Israeli intelligence. GHF has come under increasing criticism from the UN and dozens of international humanitarian organizations.<\/p>\n

Ten people have been killed<\/a> this week and at least 62 were wounded by the Israeli military as starving Palestinians gathered at a GHF aid distribution site in Rafah in southern Gaza. Although Israel says that 388 trucks<\/a> entered Gaza during the past week, that number doesn\u2019t come close to the requisite 500-600 trucks that entered daily before Israel cut off all aid on March 2.<\/p>\n