One of the common ways to greet someone in Chinese culture is to ask if they have eaten, and if not, then you offer to feed them. This is how my relatives treat me, and this was how Palestinians treated me when I was in Gaza last year—with a deep sense of respect and dignity for our shared humanity.
Despite how little food and water they had, they insisted on sharing meals together. Although there was scarcity in material resources, they expressed generosity from a place of abundance in humanity. The same Palestinian healthcare workers who shared their bread and food with me are struggling to feed their families and children right now. Their children are hungry. Their families are hungry.
The Palestinian people in Gaza are facing horrendous conditions of forced starvation and severe malnutrition right now because of the over 2-month Israeli siege and blockade on food, water, fuel, medical supplies, and so much more for the entire population of Gaza. People are starving, and the elderly, children, and babies are dying from severe malnutrition. Hunger is being used as a weapon of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and collective punishment.
As I was growing up, my father would tell me stories of how he would be hungry and not have enough to eat when he was a child, and I never had to experience this suffering and this pain because of his ability to provide for our family. I have no sufficient words of comfort to send to my colleagues in Gaza who are struggling to feed their families and their children. I can only imagine the immense suffering and pain they endure from this genocide because of the colonial and capitalist interests of Israel and its allies.
This is unbearable. My soul weeps for the people of Palestine. Our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinian people. Never stop organizing and building people power to change our communities and societies to be apartheid-free, to end complicity in genocide, and to provide the necessary mutual aid and support that Palestinians deserve to live with dignity.