“Take my kidney, just feed my children,” said a father in Gaza.
Children in Gaza went from dying from airstrikes, limbs amputated with no medication, displaced from their homes, burned alive, and now, now they are dying from hunger. This is not just a war zone, it has become a humanitarian catastrophe.
For those who remain silent or question who is right and who is wrong, I must ask, since when did starving thousands of children become self-defense? Since when did blocking food and aid while babies are dying of hunger become justified? Since when did the cries of innocent children become so easy to ignore?
This is a manufactured famine. Deliberate and, if you believe otherwise, it’s only because you haven’t looked closely enough, done your research, or chosen to confront the truth.
If you are a parent, just imagine for a moment watching your child die from hunger. Imagine watching and hearing your child crying, not from illness, but from being hungry. Now, imagine holding them in your arms and their cries turn into complete silence, their breath slowly and painfully fades away, feeling so helpless as there is nothing you can do.
This is a forced famine, engineered through blockades, bombings, and the deliberate withholding of aid, designed to break the spirit of an already wounded people. By definition, a famine is “the widespread scarcity of food leading to extreme hunger and death, often caused by conflict, displacement, or political obstruction.” What is happening in Gaza not only meets but exceeds this definition.
Again, this is a genocide. There is simply no other word for it.
The traumas Palestinians are experiencing are unbearable.
Hospitals barely have supplies. Injured children scream in pain with no anesthesia. Newborns lie in incubators with no electricity. Classrooms are turned into morgues, and schools, the ones that are still standing, are no longer places of education but shelters. A whole generation is being robbed of their education, their future and their very childhood.
Now ask yourself: What if this were your child lying in a hospital bed with no pain relief? What if it were your newborn struggling to survive without electricity? What if your child’s school was turned into a graveyard? Could you sleep at night knowing your child, daughter or son, has not eaten in days? Would you still call this “self-defense”? Would you still scroll past in silence?
Because if it were your child, your home, your life, your heart would already be breaking. How can it not?
Gaza has been bombed. Gaza has been burned. Gaza has been amputated. Gaza has been displaced and so much worse, but now, now Gaza is starving!
What more do they have to experience and endure for the world to open its eyes? What justification can possibly explain this level of suffering? What argument can ever validate the slow deliberate starvation of children?
There is nothing anyone can say to justify what is happening in Gaza. Not one thing.
To say you are or want to be “neutral” is mind-blowing to me. Neutrality in the face of injustice is not peacekeeping, it’s complicity. When children are starving, when hospitals are bombed, when families are buried under rubble, there is no such thing as a neutral stance. If you choose silence amid such inhumanity, then you are standing with the oppressor.
This is not a conflict of opinions, it’s a crisis of conscience.
Humanity is crying out and your silence echoes louder than you think.
We are not asking for sides. We are asking for basic human decency.
To see suffering and say nothing is to forget your own humanity.
If you’ve ever said you care about humanity, this is your moment to prove it.
This is not about politics. This is about lives and human decency. This is about not turning your back on human suffering.
Speak up. Use your voice. Because if it were your child, your home, your people, you’d pray the world wouldn’t stay silent, so why would you?
— Dr. Nour Suid is a Licensed Professional Counselor, mental health advocate, and founder of Serenity Wellness & Counseling in the U.S. Virgin Islands. She uses her voice to amplify stories of trauma, resilience and healing, and is a passionate advocate for Palestinian human rights.
Editor’s Note: Opinion articles do not represent the views of the Virgin Islands Source newsroom and are the sole expressed opinion of the writer. Submissions can be made to visource@gmail.com.
