Starvation in The Gaza Genocide

CrossFireArabia
Features
July 20, 2025

Gaza is starving. There has never been like it in this Israeli-induced and enforced genocide that has now been going on for about 19 months and counting.

People are literally falling in the streets and in front of the television cameras because of the biting hunger that doesn’t seem to end at the hands of a merciless Israeli enemy.

Of the people who manage to get to the dilapidated and destroyed hospitals they are dropping off on the doors of these institutions with many losing consciousness and even shrieking the last breath of death. And people die while the people in the world looks on with lavish feasts.

UNRWA says Israeli is systematically and willfully starving the Palestinian population into submission; they want them either dead or expel from their ancestral homes in the Gaza Strip. The UN refugee organization says that up to 1 million children are threatened with death through starvation. These figures are given as they are the most natural thing in the world.

This is one of the worst periods of the genocide as Arab and Israeli makers meet in Doha and elsewhere try to end this nightmare but to no avail as politics over-rides common sense and decency.

Dr Mohammad Abu Salmiyah, director of the Al Shifa Hospital says that neither patients nor medical staff nor ancillary personnel in the whole of the Gaza hospitals, which number 36 in total, have had anything to eat in the last 24 hours.

Al Jazeera correspondent Anis Alsharif says neither him nor the other anchors have had a bite to eat since Saturday afternoon because there isn’t any. People around here walk aimless until their last breath of death. Yet people, except for the frail seems to go on, as if their is an ordained hand telling, forcing them to go on.

The Israelis have refused to let anything into Gaza since last March when they realized that there was a possibility that Palestinians would flourish again; and this is after they threw on them around 100,000 tons of bombs, facilitated by their American benefactors – a situation that begun soon after, 7 October, 2023.

There is simply no food into the strip thanks to Israel. Even animal fodder, which Gazans had been reduced to eating in order to survive in the first period of starvation in 2024 and early 2025, has run out. Then fodder like wheat and barely was eaten to survive, but this appears to be the end game.

In this brave new world of starvation and famine, food has become a scarce, nay, non-existent commodity because of Israeli policies to beat the Palestinians with but they will not win despite the evil intentions.

UNRWA continues to appeal to the international community to force Israel to lift its tight and claustrophobic siege on Gaza and let the aid, food and medicine into the strip. Meanwhile, it says it has its cargoes lying in the Sinai Peninsula waiting to be delivered to the starving people of Gaza. It says in its storehouses, it has three months of supplies but it’s waiting for the might of Israel to upon up the borders.

Meanwhile people are continuing to die starting from Rafah, in Khan Younis in the center of the Strip to the far-northern areas in Jabalia, Biet Lahia and Biet Hanoon where fighting is still going on between Palestinian resistance fighters and the Israeli army.

In comes the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation which has since last May tried to provide food parcels at distribution centers run by US and Israeli personnel and which is today turning into a “free-shooting killing field” of starving Palestinian that has young been denounced by the United Nations as “weaponizing food” with very sinister connotations that include depopulating Gaza of its original inhabitants.

Seeing is believing. Palestinians, and on a daily basis, and under the eyes of the world are shot fatally on a daily basis. Take Sunday for example, the number of those that have killed is already in the 60s. As they run to get their food parcels they are shot by Israeli soldiers guarding the distribution centers. They are shot with no compunctions but with a sense of hellish deliverance.

And it is the social media who are narrating, nay “dancing” on the graves of the Palestinians. This war is probably the most documented set of atrocities, but people, the international community, gaze on with a sense of helpless, frustration and complicity. Professor Amos Goldberg, who teaches Holocaust Studies at the Hebrew University, doesn’t mince words. He says this is a “disgusting genocide”.

CrossFireArabia

Dr. Marwan Asmar holds a PhD from Leeds University and is a freelance writer specializing on the Middle East. He has worked as a journalist since the early 1990s in Jordan and the Gulf countries, and been widely published, including at Albawaba, Gulf News, Al Ghad, World Press Review and others.

Features

Jordan Footballers Delighted For World Cup Matches

CrossFireArabia
June 9, 2026

The qualification of Jordan’s national football team for the FIFA World Cup for the first time has sparked ambitions far beyond mere participation, with many Jordanians expressing confidence that the team can make a deep run in the tournament.

The World Cup will be hosted by the US, Canada and Mexico from June 11 to July 19, with Jordan drawn in Group J alongside Argentina, Algeria and Austria.

In interviews conducted by Anadolu in the Jordanian capital, citizens voiced optimism that the team can achieve unprecedented success on the global stage.

“When I see Jordan’s flag flying among the flags of nations around the world, it fills me with pride to be Jordanian,” said taxi driver Ahmad Al-Khalayleh. “Jordan is strong everywhere and will always remain at the forefront, and its flag will continue to fly high, God willing.”

Al-Khalayleh said the national team had faced unfair treatment in previous tournaments but was ready to meet expectations.

“I promise you that Jordan will leave a distinctive mark in its opening match against Austria, and the players will compete with one spirit and one heart,” he said.

Wadie Al-Qaisi, a young supporter, said he hoped the tournament would showcase Jordan’s growing football stature.

“We want the entire world to recognize Jordan’s value and the strength of its national team, and how capable it is of breaking records and achieving the ambitions of the Jordanian people,” he said. “We hope to reach the highest levels at the World Cup.”

Another fan, Aboud Al-Deek, said Jordanians were celebrating a historic achievement.

“We are very optimistic about the national team players reaching this advanced stage and qualifying for the World Cup finals for the first time,” he said. “The entire Jordanian people are happy about this achievement, and we look forward to seeing an outstanding and impressive performance.”

Haitham Al-Dajaah said the team’s success should encourage greater investment in youth football development.

“As fans and members of the sporting community, we hope to see greater attention given to youth and junior development programs so that we can compete in the advanced stages of future World Cups,” he said. “With ambition, determination and perseverance, we will be a formidable force at the World Cup, God willing.”

Young supporter Hamza Salah expressed the highest hopes of all.

“There is a sense of optimism that the national team will advance to the later stages, such as the quarterfinals or semifinals, and even win the trophy, God willing,” he said. “Jordan is capable of achieving that.” Anadolu

Features

Diving in a War Zone

CrossFireArabia
June 8, 2026

By Jing Zhang

When US and Israeli forces launched strikes on Iran on 28 February, triggering one of the most serious geopolitical crises in years, the Strait of Hormuz – a narrow channel just 34 kilometres wide at its narrowest point – became a global flashpoint overnight.

Iran closed the waterway to foreign shipping, attacking merchant vessels and cutting off around 20 per cent of the world’s seaborne oil trade. Some 20,000 seafarers were stranded in the Persian Gulf. The UN Secretary-General called for an immediate ceasefire.

Beneath all of it, the fish kept swimming.

Back in the water

Three Chinese divers based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – diving instructor Rui Li, freediver Shanshan Du and technical diver Jie Zhang – had been locked out of the water for weeks by the coastal closure. When a ceasefire allowed limited access in mid-April, they went straight back in.

World Oceans Day, marked each year on 8 June, carries the theme this year of Reimagining the Relationship Between Humans and the Ocean. For these three, that reimagining is anything but abstract.

“We were actually a little worried before setting off,” says Du, who dived the narrowest stretch between the UAE and Oman on 18 April, just days after the UN welcomed Iran’s announcement that the strait would be open to commercial vessels during the ceasefire.

“But after more than two months, we all felt it was fantastic to be able to dive again. We encountered a large group of dolphins. There was none of the war-torn atmosphere I had imagined – only peace and beauty before my eyes.”

Zhang, who dived the area as recently as last week, describes coral diversity she has rarely encountered elsewhere – soft and hard corals varying with the topography, and sea turtles gathered in such numbers they evoked a nature reserve.

A person in a scuba diving suit and mask makes a peace sign against the ocean and blue sky. — Courtesy of Jie Zhang. Jie Zhang is back from the depths, feeling the warmth of the sun.

Troubling signs

She also noticed something more troubling. “I saw more white debris on the seabed than before,” she says, uncertain of its origin. And when she and her companions followed dolphins near the eastern side of the strait, the water around the animals was streaked with green algae, oil fumes and floating rubbish.

“I recalled that when I used to chase dolphins, the water was blue. Seeing this scene with my own eyes is still very heartbreaking.”

Li is careful to hold both realities at once. The strait is not the world’s most biodiverse marine zone, he notes, but its complex topography sustains coral reefs of unusual variety – formations “as white as silver needles” alongside colonies “as purple as pine forests” – as well as seahorses, whale sharks and species rarely seen elsewhere.

He describes witnessing a boat captain who, unable to dive and with no other means of communication, could reliably find a pod of dolphins that seemed to recognise him. “We would greet each other and then go our separate ways,” Li says. “This place is truly magical.”

A wide bay with deep blue water, bordered by arid, rocky mountains and a small coastal settlement on the right. — ©Jie Zhang Overlooking the Strait of Hormuz from the Musandam Peninsula, Oman.

Potential catastrophe

Yet he is also acutely aware of what armed conflict can do to such a place. An attack on oil storage facilities, he points out, could be catastrophic for marine life. “Many marine organisms are small and vulnerable. A single attack could be enough to wipe out some amazing species that have never been seen by humans.”

Zhang frames the underwater world’s vulnerability in blunt terms. “No one can speak for the underwater ecosystem – fish can’t speak, and neither can large animals.

“We dump all the disputes, wars and pollution on land onto the ocean, ignoring the fact that the ocean has no good self-protection capabilities and can only bear all the conflicts and damage caused by human activities.”

Diving has quietly dissolved certain certainties for all three. “Underwater, the ocean has no borders,” says Zhang. “Ocean currents and schools of fish move freely. When whale sharks cruise, they follow fixed routes through different countries – they are free. Humanity should share this blue world instead of tearing it apart with disputes.”

A person in a wetsuit and goggles floats in the ocean, adjusting their mask with both hands. — ©Jie Zhang Rui Li makes a heart gesture to his dive buddy on the water’s surface, which also stands for “OK” in diving hand signal terms.

Mother ocean

Li reaches for a different metaphor – warmer, and perhaps more honest about the limits of human agency. The relationship between people and the sea, he suggests, is something like that between a child and a parent: the ocean sustains us, nurtures us, occasionally punishes us.

“We have grown old enough to want to protect it, he says, yet what we can actually do remains small. “Our parents are still quietly waiting for us, helping us, and continuing to nurture us.”

Du, diving in a country where people of dozens of nationalities converge, has found that underwater, borders feel beside the point. Communication happens through gesture alone. “Because of this hobby, and because of the ocean, it has created a wonderful environment for us.”

The conflicts raging above the surface have not ended. Talks between Washington and Tehran remain fragile, conditions volatile. But 71 per cent of the Earth is ocean – and, as Li says to anyone who has yet to see it: come and touch the refreshing water whenever you can.