Israelis ‘stand together’ to alleviate starvation in Gaza

For the past 10 months, members of Israel’s Palestinian minority and Israeli Jews who are sympathetic to Palestinians have felt boxed into a corner by the far-right government and the majority over the war in Gaza.

Last week some found a way to help, joining the Jewish-Arab organisation Standing Together to collect food for Palestinians facing bombardment and hunger in Gaza.

Those taking part in the “Campaign to Halt Starvation in Gaza” seemed to be gaining as much relief as they were giving.

The act of loading the parcels on the trucks is simultaneously a way of helping those in need, protesting the war and non-violently boxing back at the far-right government, participants said in interviews as they lifted and taped cartons of tomato paste, sugar and vegetables for a waiting truck.

Most were Palestinian Israelis who yearned to find some way to express solidarity with their fellow Palestinians. They feel coerced into silence about Gaza, facing dismissal from university or work and police action for alleged incitement — in many instances for just identifying with Gazan suffering according to rights lawyers — if they speak out about the death toll in Gaza, which the Hamas-run health ministry claims has reached 40,000.

The war was triggered by Hamas’s brutal incursion into Israel on October 7 that killed about 1200 people, mostly civilians. Leaders of the ruling Likud party say the war atmosphere has created a need for tough steps against incitement.

“I feel anger, I feel sadness, I feel frustration, I feel disgust. We want the killing of women and children to stop,” said Nawras Hourani, a student from the Galilee town of Majd al-Krum who travelled four hours to the Negev Bedouin town of Hura to join the Standing Together event.