A step towards life in Gaza: food, water and medicine must arrive

The atrocities committed by one side do not justify the atrocities committed by the other. The lack of access to basic necessities for life—food, water, and medicine—immediately limits the number of minutes of life. There is no time to wait. For this reason, we demand that trucks carrying food and medicine, in adequate quantities and volumes, be allowed to cross the border and enter the grim Gaza ghetto to provide food to the population, who, on the surface, remain hungry, thirsty, sick, and on the brink of death.

Gaza's few remaining productive lands, through agroecological production processes and the empowerment of the women who have led these processes, were at least mitigating a dramatic situation of limited access to healthy vegetables, under self-sufficient food production systems in areas restricted to urban and peri-urban spaces. All of this is now under strain and on the verge of collapse due to the recurring bombings by the Israeli government.

Therefore, unable to produce their own food or import it normally, we appeal to the humanity of those who are currently preventing the innocent civilian population, uninvolved in the conflict, from receiving the food, water, and medicine that could save their lives. The siege includes the lack of electricity for hospitals and gas.

Life is sacred. And food sustains it. To deny it is clearly a cruel and inhumane act. The border must be opened immediately to allow the passage of food supplies to the civilian population, and the roads that have been treacherously bombed must be protected and their passage facilitated. We appeal to the United Nations, as the international governing body, and to the leading figures of the world's religions to unite in one voice and demand that this genocide against a defenseless civilian population cease. As Craig Mokhiber stated on October 28th in his resignation as Director of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, “This is a typical genocide, as were those against the Tutsis, the Bosnian Muslims, the Yazidis, and the Rohingya recently… The UN’s failure in Palestine thus far is no reason for us to withdraw. Rather, it should give us the courage to abandon the failed paradigm of the past and fully embrace a more principled course.” Therefore, it is essential right now to allow the passage of food that
Simply put, at least they'll save lives. It's simply called humanity…

November 3th 2023
CLACSO Working Groups
Epistemologies of the South
Political Agroecology
Edward Said Chair of Palestinian Studies, Faculty of Philosophy and Letters (UBA)
Network on Violence, Subjectivities and Collectives in Contexts of Vulnerability. Necropolitics and Mourning. University of Costa Rica

This text expresses the position of the aforementioned Working Groups and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.