Join the Gaza Hunger Strike

to keep our gaze on Gaza.

I am joining the Gaza Hunger Strike for two days, organised by Satyam Homeland.

You too can join. You can join for one day, or more. You can also join the zoom calls to support the strikers.

The Gaza Hunger Strike is more than a solidarity action. It is a spiritual act. It is resistance and nourishment for the soul, in a time of mass paralysis.

Organisers of the Hunger Strike, Satyam Homeland say, “Why do we strike together?

We meet as Palestinians and Israelis, (and Internationals)

not to debate or divide,

but to hold this sacred hunger together—

in the name of Gaza,

in the name of every child who deserves to wake to morning.

It is a quiet refusal to participate in forgetting.

It is a remembering of soul, of solidarity, of sacred resistance”

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The day before I participated in my first zoom call about the Gaza Hunger Strike, i read The Last Days of Gaza - The Chris Hedges Report. In the less than 300 words quoted below, Chris Hedges manages to articulate this current moment. It’s a bleak and harrowing read.

“This is the end. The final blood-soaked chapter of the genocide. It will be over soon. Weeks. At most. But it will end soon. There is not much more Palestinians can take.

I have stopped looking at the images. The rows of little shrouded bodies. The decapitated men and women. Families burned alive in their tents. The children who have lost limbs or are paralyzed. The chalky death masks of those pulled from under the rubble. The wails of grief. The emaciated faces. I can’t.

There is nothing left to say. Maybe that is the point. To render us speechless. Who does not feel paralyzed? And maybe, that too, is the point. To paralyze us. Who is not traumatized? And maybe that too was planned. Nothing we do, it seems, can halt the killing. We feel defenseless. We feel helpless.

What message has this genocide imparted not only to Palestinians, but to all in the Global South? It is unequivocal. You do not matter. Humanitarian law does not apply to you.

Once it is over, all those who supported it, all those who ignored it, all those who did nothing, will rewrite history, including their personal history. It was hard to find anyone who admitted to being a Nazi in post-war Germany, or a member of the Klu Klux Klan once segregation in the southern United States ended. A nation of innocents. Victims even. It will be the same.

This genocide will haunt us. It will echo down history with the force of a tsunami. It will divide us forever. There is no going back. And how will we remember? By not remembering.”

These words deeply impacted me and guided me. While Chris Hedges wrote of being speechless and paralysed, of the incapacity to bear more witness, I felt more need and capacity in me to do exactly that. Not by looking or reading; not more images or articles and opinion. I need to feel embodied as an act of resistance to the paralysis created by the sheer quantity of horrific acts. I need to come home to myself, to feel hunger in me and to know that the intention of my hunger is to link me to the starved people in Gaza, and to my fellow human beings who are also striking, wherever they may be in the world. I want to remember, every second of the day, what is happening in Gaza, because the immensity of the loss of life and destruction, makes us want to turn away.

It’s a deeply solo and spiritual act of resistance, while also being done in community. I cannot hide from myself. I am here to protect life.

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A hunger strike is a form of nonviolent protest in which a person voluntarily refuses to eat—and sometimes drink—to draw attention to a cause or demand change. It is often used by political prisoners, activists, or marginalized individuals when other methods of protest are unavailable or ignored. It has been used by Gandhi, Bobby Sands (Ireland), Nasrin Soutoudeh (Iran), Emmeline Pankhurts (UK), Alaa Abd El‑Fattah (Egypt) and his mother Leila Soueif and many, many more people.

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I heard about this Strike through the Palestinians and Israelis at the NVC Rising gathering in Southern Spain, Rising for Life! 24-31 May 2025; around 60 souls who are sick and tired of what is happening in the world, who believe in a more just and peaceful world, and who came together to see how Nonviolent Communication can support belonging, healing, care and coming alive in action.

Please join us. Anyone can join the daily zoom calls in solidarity.

You can sign up for news here. Here is a map of strikers and supporters