‘I Feel as Though Gaza Has Been Forgotten’

As of March 2, Israel has blocked the entry of food, humanitarian aid, and fuel, which is leading to the rationing of food and essential medication. Israel’s ongoing campaign of weaponized starvation is part and parcel of its wider blockade of Gaza, which has been in place since 2007. It has now been over one week since food has entered Gaza, and now with electricity cut off to the Strip, the impact will further devastate a struggling population, resulting in an end to functioning desalination stations which means no clean water. In a report for Al Jazeera English delivered by Hind Khoudary, it was revealed that the only remaining desalination plant in Gaza located in Deir al Balah, which provides clean water to 500,000 people, has been forced to reduce water production by a staggering 90 percent.

According to UNICEF official Rosalia Bollen, only 1 in 10 people in Gaza have access to clean drinking water, which will only worsen with Israel’s blockade of 1.8 million people, half of them children. In light of Israel’s tightening grip on the people of Gaza, the leader of Yemen’s AnsarAllah, Sayyed Abdulmalik al Houthi, gave Israel, and by extension the United States, an ultimatum: “We will give a deadline for four days. If the Israeli enemy after four days continues to prevent the humanitarian aid [from entering] into Gaza and continues to completely close the crossings, we will resume our naval operations against the Israeli enemy.” Israel’s failure to comply with the demands made by AnsarAllah has now resulted in the execution of Yemen’s notorious red line, which saw at least 100 naval attacks carried out from November 2023, disrupting maritime shipping and impacting international trade routes. 

The war of starvation being waged by Israel is not the only crisis in Gaza. An investigation by Euro-Med Monitor led to the discovery of two mass graves near Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, two of over 130 mass graves across the Strip that they have documented since the genocide began. The latest investigation uncovered the bodies of adults and children with their hands bound by zip ties. Even as families continue to search for and attempt to identify the bodies of their loved ones, Israel is killing those who remain. On March 10, Israel directly targeted three brothers by drone strike east of al Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, killing all three: Mahmoud Abdullah Ahmed, Mohammed Abdullah Ahmed, and Ahmed Abdullah Ahmed. On March 11, an Israeli drone strike near the Netzarim Corridor, south of Gaza City, killed five Palestinians. Another five people would be killed by Israel before noon. The so-called ceasefire has not brought relief, but has evolved into worsening forms of torture all while the United States doubles down on genocidal threats to empty Gaza of its inhabitants. Biden’s war is now Trump’s war—a continuation of the United States’ legacy of calculated violence, designed to maintain its hegemonic grip across the Middle East and North Africa.

“The Trump administration thinks that these crimes will make us abandon Gaza and allow the occupation to swallow us whole,” says Zahra, a dental student forcibly displaced from the north of Gaza, who now lives in a tent with the remainder of her family. “But we will never leave Gaza. To leave Gaza, our home, is to cease to exist. The same hands that are digging up the graves of our families will be the same hands to rebuild our land.” Zahra tells Splinter that despite burying her older sister, after tirelessly searching for her body immediately after the ceasefire was implemented, her dedication to Gaza and her resolve has only increased. “We are the caretakers of this land, and we will not kneel to anyone, no matter how powerful their armies are, no matter what they do to us. After burying my sister, nothing tastes or feels the same. The world is darker. The only constant is our resistance, and our commitment to liberating our people from the jaws of occupation. Our people are the heartbeat of Gaza, and nothing will drive us out but God, even if the whole world turns to ash around us.”