It was an hours walk to the Deir al-Balah market in Gaza. They arrive there tired, sad and crying, but determined to bring food for their children. Hesitantly, they take a ring, necklace or expensive gold bracelet from their pocket, to exchange it cheaply for food for their children. If you haven't guessed yet, these are the Palestinian women who have lost everything and are now forced to sell their jewelry and leftover memories on the black market to save their children from the famine imposed on them by Israel.
The stories of Palestinian women, men and children going hungry in Gaza reveal more than just hunger, deprivation and despair. Above all, they testify to a Palestinian consciousness that – at this moment, given the circumstances – is willing to sell, barter and give up everything in order to survive, even the most cherished memories. The Palestinians who have already lost everything physically, are now also forced to give up symbolic, deeply emotional parts that are an inseparable part of the Palestinian consciousness and collective resilience to survive.
As for survival, Palestinians have done everything to survive, from eating animal food to accepting humanitarian aid packages dropped by the US, knowing that this country is also financing their extermination.
Targeted hunger policy
To understand the devastating effect that Israel's famine is having on Palestinian society and consciousness, it is essential to consider this targeted hunger policy. As is well known, during the siege from October 7, Israel allowed in enough food to prevent mass death, but not enough to alleviate hunger or reduce the prospect of famine.
For those who don't know, Israel takes cumbersome, complicated and restrictive measures when inspecting aid convoys, and those inspections can take up to three weeks. And as if this were not enough, many convoys are often held up because they are carrying one innocent item that Israel considers 'militarily valuable', forcing the whole procedure to be repeated again.
While Israel has allowed coordinated food drops and sea transports, these represent at best a marginal portion of the food now needed in Gaza. But it is important to realize that those cumbersome bureaucratic procedures, ostensibly designed to “protect” Israel, are not arbitrary; they form an inseparable part of Israel's security policy, which – with the eternal pretext of 'the surrender of Hamas' – aims to force the Palestinians into submission. But in what world should the lives of Palestinian children and women depend on Hamas's surrender?
Israel is not the only party that uses 'targeted famine' as a weapon of mass destruction and profits from the fate of the helpless Palestinians in Gaza. Also Hamas and Egypt have unfortunately made their contribution and even played a crucial role in breaking the Palestinian spirit. Let's start with Egypt: that country has economic control over the security and logistics aspects of the Rafah border crossing. But few people know that the passage of goods at the Egyptian border is entirely managed by the Egyptian company Abnaa Sinai, which since 2018 has had an absolute monopoly on goods entering Gaza.
So far, nothing to worry about, except that this transportation company has significant financial, strategic and political ties to the industrial conglomerate of the Ministry of Defense, the National Services Projects Organization and the Egyptian General Intelligence Service. The latter has ultimate control over the Rafah border crossing, and even owns 51 percent of Misr Sinai, one of the transport companies of, yes, Abnaa Sinai.
Unprecedented privileges
The result is of course that the lives of the Palestinians in Gaza are not run by civilian state institutions, but mainly by bodies and agencies in the field of defense security that are only concerned with economic profit. The Abnaa Sinai transportation group has enormous power, influence and ties to economics and security, giving it unprecedented privileges to raise the prices of transport, transit and taxes without fear of government sanctions.
According to Palestinian merchants anonymously with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) dared to talk, Abnaa Sinai is using its monopoly as the exclusive carrier of goods to Gaza to drive up transportation prices and taxes. Abnaa Sinai said it increased prices sixfold and imposed a new $75 per day levy on every truck at the Rafah border, where thousands of trucks are queuing to enter.
And to make matters worse, an equally dangerous aspect is added to this complexity and exploitation. Palestinian merchants said the OCCRP that there is absolute chaos in Gaza and that there is therefore no supervision of food prices, including those of basic necessities. Gaza has a black market controlled by thugs, merchants and middlemen who make a fortune off the backs of the starving Gazans.
Some of the merchants OCCRP spoke to even said that Hamas operatives at the Rafah border are extorting Palestinian importers, refusing to pay them a fair price for the goods they import, nor monitoring prices at the points of sale. Many Palestinian merchants say that the Palestinian Ministry of Economy in Gaza, led by Hamas, drives and profits from the black market. According to the statements of these merchants, this ministry takes away shipments of food arriving in Gaza from the main outlets in the three districts of Khan Younes, Rafah and Central Gaza, sells some of them at ridiculous prices and hides the rest for several days, after which they emerge again are collected and handed over to the merchants who sell them on the black market at sky-high prices.
Last refuge
The targeted famine in Gaza is therefore a weapon of war that everyone involved exploits and uses, and from which they all benefit, including Hamas. The benefits and earnings are different for each party. Hamas and Egypt are conducting the current campaign mainly over the corpses of Palestinians and are mainly achieving economic gains.
Israel, on the other hand, is conducting this campaign mainly against the consciousness of the Palestinians in Gaza. It destroys Palestinian consciousness through the destruction of the Palestinian body, which is the last refuge after the physical and symbolic destruction in Gaza.
The destruction of the Palestinian body – 'the last refuge' – through the targeted famine carried out mainly by Israel is very different from the death under aerial bombardment that many consider 'heroic'. Starvation is associated with humiliation, pleading, shame and lack of dignity, designed to burn Palestinian consciousness to the ground – at the deepest and most intimate level, in the safest place left: their bodies.
But above all, the targeted famine in Gaza is intended, in light of the October 7 fiasco, to place Israel in the Palestinian consciousness as an all-powerful God who holds life and death in his hands.
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