Caitlin Johnstone: Gaza Isn’t Starving, It’s Being Starved

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Western governments have conspired against aid systems that are standing by, ready to protect Gazans from the accelerating spread of death by malnutrition.

Unidentified 4-year-old Palestinian girl who lost her life due to malnutrition and lack of treatment due to Israel’s assault on Gaza, Aug. 14, 2024. (UNRWA /Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 4.0)

By Caitlin Johnstone
CaitlinJohnstone.com.au

Listen to Tim Foley reading this article

Malnutrition-related deaths in Gaza are beginning to climb, with the health ministry reporting 18 in a single 24-hour period.

Doctors report that people are “collapsing” in the street and Gaza journalist Nahed Hajjaj is warning the world not to be surprised if the remaining reporters in the enclave are soon silenced by starvation.

Unless something drastically changes, things can be expected to get much worse very rapidly.

Meanwhile Israeli forces are setting new records with their massacres of starving civilians seeking aid, with 85 killed in a single day on Sunday.

If this isn’t evil, then nothing is evil. If Israel isn’t evil, then nothing is.

So what’s the plan here? Do we just sit and watch Israel starve Gaza to death with the support of our own governments?

And then what? We just go along with our lives, knowing that that happened? That this is what we are as a society?

That our civilization is comfortable allowing something like that to happen?

And that our rulers could do the same thing to another inconvenient population at any time?

We’re just meant to be cool with that? And go on living like it’s normal?

I’m genuinely curious. How exactly is everyone planning to go about living their lives after that point? How does that work, exactly?

I’m asking because I don’t know. I mean, I know what my own government and its allies should do, but I don’t know what we as ordinary members of the public are supposed to do.

You’ll see Western pundits and politicians asking “How do we get a ceasefire in Gaza?” or “How do we end hunger in Gaza?” as though it’s some kind of ineffable mystery, which is kind of like a man strangling a child to death while saying “The child is being strangled, but HOW do we stop the child strangulation from occurring?”

It’s not some mystery how to get a ceasefire in Gaza; the empire is the fire. It simply needs to cease firing.

Israel’s holocaust in Gaza is made possible only by the support of its western backers, primarily the United States. Numerous Israeli military insiders have acknowledged that none of this would be possible without US support. If the United States and its western allies ceased backing Israel’s onslaught in Gaza, a ceasefire would have to occur.

Likewise, it is not a mystery how to get food into Gaza. You just drive the food on in and give it to people. They’ve got roads and gates right there.

The only reason people in Gaza are starving is because western governments (including my own Australia) conspired to pretend to believe that the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) is a terrorist organization to justify cutting off critical aid, while doing nothing to pressure Israel into allowing aid to flow freely.

And now Israel and the U.S. empire are monopolizing the delivery of “aid” through the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, whose facilities now see civilians massacred every day for the crime of attempting to obtain food.

The organizations, funding and delivery systems to feed Gaza are all 100 percent fully available (at no cost to Israel, by the way). They’re just not being allowed to provide aid because the goal is to remove all Palestinians from Gaza via death or displacement.

The people of Gaza are starving because the West is helping Israel starve Gaza. It really is that simple.

This isn’t some kind of unfortunate famine caused by a drought or natural disaster. It is a deliberately manufactured starvation campaign, implemented with genocidal intent.

To paraphrase Utah Phillips, Gaza isn’t starving, it is being starved. And the people who are starving it have names and addresses.

Caitlin Johnstone’s work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following her on FacebookTwitterSoundcloudYouTube, or throwing some money into her tip jar on Ko-fiPatreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy her books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff she publishes is to subscribe to the mailing list at her website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything she publishes.  For more info on who she is, where she stands and what she’s trying to do with her platform, click here. All works are co-authored with her American husband Tim Foley.

This article is from CaitlinJohnstone.com.au and re-published with permission.

The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.

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15 comments for “Caitlin Johnstone: Gaza Isn’t Starving, It’s Being Starved

  1. Tony
    July 24, 2025 at 08:44

    I remember an article about Hiroshima that described how an atomic bomb ‘fell from the sky’.

  2. Les
    July 22, 2025 at 15:42

    When I lived in southern Africa as a kid many years ago we used to set a trap to catch birds. So we would put a bit of food out for them and when they came we would grab or maybe even shoot them.

  3. Richard Burrill
    July 22, 2025 at 12:54

    And to think that the US has had two successive presidents who are totally complicit with the destruction of Palestinians in Gaza a the West Bank. They have give Israel bombs, bombs, billions of dollars and many more weapons that are being used to eliminate the Palestinians who are the natives there. All the time Biden and Trump could have stopped giving Israel the above weapons and ceased what Israel is doing. To think that the American people elected these awful guys to represent us.

  4. Eric Foor
    July 22, 2025 at 12:01

    How can we stop it?

    “We must reach inside, grab the gears and stop the machine” (Mario Savio) ….in other words….A GENERAL STRIKE.

    We must stop feeding this KILLING MACHINE. We must stop our excessive consumption….and restrain our excessive growth.

    Stop investing in unrestrained Capitalism. Stop obeying these ZIONIST GANGSTERS… and stop listening to their false propaganda.

    Stop supporting traditional political parties. Form local units that focus on a sustainable future and prepare to repel Zionist saboteurs.

    These Zionist MINDWIPERS are the principal obstacle to World Peace…look at how they defy the United Nations.

    Boycott, Divest & Sanction the Jewish Zionists, The Christian Zionists and all the other Zionist Supremacists.

    They may appear as anonymous chameleons but are in fact a deadly menace to our existence.. so prepare to defend yourself in this

    struggle for your life and your family.

  5. Donna Bubb
    July 22, 2025 at 07:50

    How abominably horrible when at this god-awful point of human destruction our Democrat Senators and Reps tell us that Israel has a right to defend itself. From what?? For what?? What is happening to our country???

  6. Three Minutes Missing in Tme ?
    July 21, 2025 at 21:55

    The mirror is ugly when you look into thee .
    Your minds outstretched arms show you only as a barriered witness short of where your eyes can see .
    A paralell universe seems just a window while staring at places you were told not to go .
    The ears hurt from the silent cry for help .
    Sorry is my word but real tears are my cry .
    You turn to look out your window to what is in the view today .
    It does not look as pretty as it once did as you need to turn away .
    Excuse me , if for a moment , while I time travel to the scene from some yesterday .
    I know the future is where I will return as time does not stop when I am away .
    Please , I pray , I don”t go to far , that upon my return , the future is yesterday .
    Or do I ?
    Must one travel alone ?
    Simple seems complex , how is that even so ?
    Today is the roadblock to the future if it stays the same ?
    Is tommorow when we get to travel back to today ?
    Why would you want too ?
    Three Minutes Missing in Tme will not make a shorter day .
    Some use this as a “spell ” ?
    You are ” Getting Sleepy “

  7. gcw919
    July 21, 2025 at 18:02

    If someone lets loose a rabid dog, and it attacks a neighbor’s child, its the dog’s owner, not the dog, who is primarily responsible. So let’s not kid ourselves about Israel’s barbarity (its real); this is an American crime, through and through, and speaks of our rapidly diminishing humanity.

    • Scarlett Butler
      July 21, 2025 at 22:11

      Yet another American Genocide. It is interesting that Americans speak of ‘our rapidly diminishing humanity’. Was America somehow more humane when it was taking away the indigenous people’s hunting and fishing grounds and using starvation to force them onto reservations. Or did America have more humanity back when it was rounding up all the Japanese and forcing them into detention centers? We of course know that Obama was being humane during the 1st Yemen Genocide where the blocking of food aid killed something like 750,000 human souls as Obama’s great humanity is beyond dispute.

      America always has this myth in its head that it is somehow a humane and decent place, and yet voices like Mark Twain have been pointing out the hypocrisy and flat-out BS of this myth for just about as long as America has been spreading this BS. Was America more humane when it was killing Filipinos to make the world safe for Democracy and Freedom in Mark Twain’s time? Or was America more humane when it was killing 2 to 3 million Vietnamese to make the world safe for Democracy and Freedom in the 1960’s and 70’s?

      The dream that America is a humane place where one can find humane people is another one of those American Dreams that one has to be asleep to believe. The reason why American hate history is that history books tend to be full of the proof that proves that this humanity is only a myth. It so much easier just to burn all those pesky history books and write brand new ones.

      “I am convinced that … we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values.” Dr Martin Luther King, April 1967, ‘Beyond Vietnam’

    • Valerie
      July 22, 2025 at 05:07

      “and speaks of our rapidly diminishing humanity.”

      It’s not just humanity which is diminishing. It’s our water, our atmosphere, our flora and fauna. We are on a path of no return. And it’s not only an American crime. It’s the UK/Germany and other european countries.

  8. Drew Hunkins
    July 21, 2025 at 17:55

    Yesterday the Jewish supremacists shot to death over 90 Palestinian civilians standing in line for food aid.

    The Jewish supremacists will either starve them to death or gun them down.

    And way too many American Baby Boomers essentially support these freaks.

  9. July 21, 2025 at 16:41

    Meanwhile Israeli forces are setting new records with their massacres of starving civilians seeking aid, with 85 killed in a single day on Sunday.

    If this isn’t evil, then nothing is evil. If Israel isn’t evil, then nothing is.

    *

    It feels as if people around the world have not fully grasped what collective humanity is up against here. Thankfully, the numbers of those who recognize the historic criminality are growing with each passing day. Perhaps comprehension can become assisted by clearly spelling out the immense moral challenge, or problem, now faced:

    E … V … I … L.

  10. mgr
    July 21, 2025 at 14:59

    It’s as if the collective West is presently protecting the guards of Auschwitz as they do their work. Ms. Johnstone is exactly right in her question. How are the ordinary people of our supposedly democratic societies in which the people rule through their elected representatives supposed to live from here on out? How was it for the “good Germans” once the actions of the Nazis which may have been suspected but then were finally verified? They too lived in a republic where the voice of the people supposedly mattered. And what about the children of the Western public of today? How will they carry this going forward. I guess we see now how empires crumble, not through external adversaries but from internal rot; their demise is self-inflicted. The echoes of this human cataclysm will march for decades and more into the future. I imagine that more and more people in the world are seriously wondering whether the US and its allies have any right to exist at all.

    • Dan
      July 21, 2025 at 19:18

      Excellent comment. Thanks.

    • Scarlett Butler
      July 21, 2025 at 22:33

      I saw a poll related to the Japanese elections that said that now only 20% of Japanese trust the USA. That was how this outlet put it, that ‘now only’ 20%. Frankly, I count this as a case of Stockholm Syndrome, in that the nation that was the only nation to be attacked by nuclear weapons actually has 20% of its population trusting the nation that nuked them once before.

      Oh, and if we decide to have a thorough discussion of all the American genocides, the firebombing of Japanese cities made of wood and paper, followed by the nuclear attacks that killed 150,000 people has to be on the list somewhere.

      • Valerie
        July 22, 2025 at 05:14

        I’m surprised it’s even 20%.

Comments are closed.