Introduction by Croakey: Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has joined more than 100 other organisations in urgently calling for lifesaving aid to enter Gaza, amid increasing reports of deaths due to malnutrition, especially among babies and children, and the threat of mass starvation.
The organisations said aid workers are also starving as a result of the Israeli Government’s siege of Gaza, and are risking being shot in food lines while trying to feed their families.
“With supplies now totally depleted, humanitarian organisations are witnessing their own colleagues and partners waste away before their eyes,” said the statement.
Global media organisations raised similar concerns this week about the fate of journalists in Gaza, who are also starving, with yet more reports of Palestinian journalists killed this week.
Doctors report record rates of acute malnutrition, especially among children and older people, and MSF has described the harrowing impacts of “the weaponisation of food” and “deliberate starvation manufactured by the Israeli authorities”.
“What we are seeing is unconscionable; an entire population being deliberately cut off from food and water, all while the Israeli forces commit daily massacres as people scramble for scraps of food at distribution sites,” said a statement quoting Amande Bazerolle, MSF head of emergency response in Gaza.
The joint statement by aid organisations said governments “must stop waiting for permission to act”.
“It is time to take decisive action: demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire; lift all bureaucratic and administrative restrictions; open all land crossings; ensure access to everyone in all of Gaza; reject military-controlled distribution models; restore a principled, UN-led humanitarian response, and continue to fund principled and impartial humanitarian organisations. States must pursue concrete measures to end the siege, such as halting the transfer of weapons and ammunition.”
Meanwhile, scores of health workers around Australia are participating in a chain hunger strike to highlight their calls for the Australian Government and health organisations to take meaningful action.
Below, some participants explain their motivation (note that their articles were written on different dates; hence the statistics cited vary). Further updates from Gaza follow beneath their accounts.
From little acorns
Dr Rob Moodie AM, Professor of Public Health, University of Melbourne
As a parent of two children and grandparent of three, I can barely imagine the physical terror, crippling heartache, and shattering despair of those in Palestine. When I eat or take a warm shower or sleep in a comfortable, safe bed, I shudder with the knowledge that millions are missing out.
I think of the Ukrainians, and the 12 million displaced in Sudan, and those in Myanmar, and the Israelis who have lost family members. I think of those in the 59 current wars going on around our globe.
But it is the sheer horror, and the magnitude and viciousness that is being rained on the Palestinians which is the most shocking. Millions in Palestine have to ask these questions every day, every hour – where can we get clean water, or any food, where can we even shit? Where can we sleep?
I am a doctor who has always believed that health workers should be free of direct targeting in war – yet according to the Ministry of Health of the State of Palestine, at least 1,581 health workers have been killed by the Israeli military since 7 October 2023.
And the unimaginable became reality when we learned that the paediatrician Dr Alaa al-Najjar had lost nine of her 10 children, and her husband, in May this year to an IDF strike.
The latest figures from Médecins Sans Frontières tell the story of a living hell – more than 57,000 Palestinians killed, with more than 90 percent displaced, along with 80 percent of buildings destroyed, including hospitals, water systems, and food infrastructure.
Severe shortages of food, fuel, and clean water. Sanitation infrastructure has broken down. Aid convoys are regularly attacked or looted; more than 640 civilians have been killed at food distribution sites since late May.
The Government of Israel must stop – just as the US, German, Italian, and UK governments must stop supplying them. And the Australian Government, defence contractors, and universities here must stop any involvement and aid to the Israeli Government and IDF.
From little acorns mighty oaks grow, so I thank those who generated this chain hunger strike and I vow to carry it on every Sunday night to Tuesday morning until there is a workable ceasefire.
Join us
Dr Margaret Beavis is a former GP who teaches medicine at Melbourne University and Vice President of the Medical Association for the Prevention of War (MAPW).
Why is this rolling hunger strike so urgent?
17,000 children are reported killed already. This is over 26 kids a day since 7 October 2023 – a classroom full killed every day. It is hard to imagine, especially given Gaza has only two million people. Imagine this daily death toll happening in just one half of Melbourne.
A similar number of children are abandoned, having no surviving family members. Thousands more have had life wrecking injuries including amputations (many without anaesthetic) and lifelong brain injuries.
If these were Israeli children, I would be just as appalled.
The targeting of the health system in Gaza – bombing hospitals and killing, imprisoning and torturing health workers – is totally unacceptable. The destruction of the water, sanitation and electrical infrastructure will cause even more deaths.
The British Medical Association recently cut ties with the Israeli Medical Association. We need similar courage here – turning a blind eye is not, as the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners says, “politically neutral”, but enabling it to continue.
The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation is one of the few to condemn what is happening. Our professional bodies must boycott institutions affiliated with the Israeli military.
As a former GP and now medical tutor, I heard about the rolling hunger strike through a Health Care Workers for Palestine WhatsApp Group. As part of the Medical Association for Prevention of War, we have been asking health colleges and the Australian Medical Association to deplore the targeting of health workers and hospitals, to no avail.
The hunger strike concept is powerful. We urgently need to increase attention to what is happening in Gaza, to increase pressure on civil society organisations here and in Israel, as well as on the Australian and Israeli governments. It was pressure from civil society that led to change in South Africa.
If you are a health worker, please consider joining us. Let your friends know about it. Write to your association. If you are not a health worker, write to your MP, and copy in Wong and Albanese. This appalling manmade disaster must stop.
To quote Martin Luther King Jnr: “There comes a time when silence is betrayal.”
Read more here: https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/07/gaza-there-comes-a-time-when-silence-is-betrayal/
Speak up
Mark Murphy, Registered Nurse
I have been a registered nurse for 30 years. I first heard about the chain hunger strike through a WhatsApp group I’m in with other healthcare workers here in Sydney, New South Wales.
As a member of Nurses & Midwives for Palestine (you can find us at: nandm4palestine on Instagram) and actively involved in the pro-Palestinian movement since October 2023, I felt participating in the chain hunger strike was another platform where healthcare workers could speak up to call an end to the genocide and the ongoing atrocities and war crimes being committed against Palestinians.
At the time I participated in the chain hunger strike, a blockade had been in place for 104 days, meaning Palestinians had no access to any form of humanitarian aid and Israel was using starvation as yet another weapon of war (concurrently there was no reprieve from the bombing of hospitals, refugee camps and targeting murder of children and healthcare workers).
My involvement meant I only drank water for 24 hours; this pales in comparison to the ongoing starvation and annihilation Palestinians are being subjected to 24/7 in Gaza.
During this 24-hour period, I had access to clean, fresh drinking water and the comforts of home, a roof over my head and the feeling of security that goes with this. Again, there’s no source of clean, fresh drinking water in Gaza, and Palestinians are forced to consume stagnant water that leads to further illness, let alone having access to fresh food that would meet their basic nutritional requirements.
I made a video for social media to let the world know who I was and why I was doing this, making yet another desperate plea for the Australian Government and Prime Minister Albanese to end their complicity and take real action, to impose sanctions on Israel, end the blockade and allow uninterrupted aid into Gaza now! To play his role in demonstrating what real leadership looks like and how real leaders display bravery, courage and earn respect of citizens!
I am writing this on 19 July, which marks the 139th day since Israel imposed this blockade; in late May, the establishment of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) saw 400 humanitarian aid sites reduced to four and, more recently, one. Nearly 900 Palestinians have been murdered whilst desperately attempting to gain access to this aid.
Whilst their name implies compassion, behind the GHF are mercenaries working in lock step with Israel to compound the suffering of innocent Palestinians and fuelling the ongoing genocide. Boston Consulting Group, one of the architects behind the GHF, has offices based in Sydney’s Martin Place.
I implore anyone who has a shred of humanity to speak up, wherever you can, everyone can play a part – at home, at work, at your place of worship. Do not stay silent, get involved, participate in rallies, events, join the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) campaign, post on social media, donate to organisations like the Palestinian Australian & New Zealand Medical Association (PANZMA) that send healthcare workers into Gaza to treat the survivors of the genocide and pay respects to those that have endured the ultimate suffering, being death.
If you haven’t already taken a stand now, be on the right side of history; be proud that your actions contributed to end the blockade, the occupation, the genocide and sanctions imposed on Israel that led to uninterrupted full humanitarian aid access, the cessation of weapons and weapon components to Israel (again, like BCG, this is happening in our city, there are companies like SEC Plating in Belmore & Quickstep in Bankstown that both enable modifications to be made to F-35 fighter jets to ensure the carpet bombing and destruction of Gaza and murder of Palestinians continues unabated). From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
Fund healthcare, not warfare
Amanda, dietitian
I’m based in Naarm/Melbourne. Upon hearing about the hunger strike from several healthcare workers for Palestine organising groups, I decided to participate for two main reasons:
- To raise awareness of the increasingly catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza, including the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) forced starvation on Palestinians.
- To demand PM Anthony Albanese, Foreign Minster Penny Wong and the Australian Government sanction Israel immediately for its war crimes.
Many Australians aren’t aware that our government is using our taxpayer money to fund weapons manufacturing, while cutting funds from hospitals that improve our community.
We manufacture parts for the F45 Fighter Jet in our own backyard – just like the one that killed Zomi Frankcom, the Australian World Central Kitchen (WCK) aid worker, in Gaza in April 2024.
The IOF has forced most humanitarian aid centres in Gaza, such as WCK, to close due to the deliberate bombing of aid sites and killing of aid workers.
Since 2 March, 2025, Israel has blocked humanitarian aid from entering Gaza. Forced starvation as a method of warfare is a war crime under international humanitarian law and international human rights. This is one of many committed by the IOF.
Gaza’s Government Media Office reports 620 Palestinians have been killed through starvation. Meanwhile 650,000 children under five years old are at severe risk.
“I have had so many patients die because they can’t get enough food to recover, it’s distressing to see that and know that it is preventable and treatable,” said British Surgeon and Professor Nick Maynard, currently at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis with Medical Aid for Palestinians’ Emergency Medical Team.
Just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse, the IOF have killed nearly 900 Palestinians around Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) locations since it was established at the end of May 2025. Mohammed al-Barbary, a Palestinian in Gaza called the GHF sites ‘death traps’.
PM Anthony Albanese, FM Penny Wong and the Australian Government must do more than express “concern”.
We must sanction Israel by imposing a two-way arms embargo and cutting all economic and military ties. We could divest the billions of taxpayer dollars from warfare to healthcare.
With all that money, we could fund more emergency services to reduce ambulance wait times so that Australians can receive critical care in due time and improve chance of full recovery; fund more hospital staffing to improve quality of care and health outcomes for patients and reduce burnout for staff; and improve accessibility of bulk billed GP appointments so more Australians can stay on top of their health more easily.
As healthcare workers for Palestine, what we want is simple: Fund healthcare, not warfare.
Advocacy matters
Helen Zscharnagk, registered nurse
I am an emergency nurse in Boorloo/Perth WA. I heard about the hunger strike through local advocacy group Healthcare Workers for Palestine WA, who are collaborating with interstate and national HCW advocacy groups in supporting the hunger strike and other advocacy actions for Palestine.
I chose to participate to keep our campaign for the Palestinian people visible.
Until the bombs stop dropping on the civilian population; until the mothers and fathers in Gaza can say their children are safe; until the homes, the hospitals, the schools, and the places of worship, are re built; until the occupation of Palestine ends and the human rights of the Palestinian people are respected; until we no longer see war crime after war crime being committed by the IOF; until we no longer hear the genocidal and hateful rhetoric of the Israeli government, until Palestinians are fairly represented in our media; until the global community and Australian Government take definitive action to end the genocide, until the perpetrators of this horrific campaign of violence are held accountable; until then Palestine is at the forefront of my mind and my actions.
As well as hunger-striking, there are numerous ways we can advocate for Palestine.
Through signing petitions and writing to our MPs, placing pressure on our government to act. Through boycotting and divesting from complicit companies such as Caltex, Coca Cola, and McDonalds. Through creating platforms for Palestinian voices, attending events hosting Palestinian speakers, screening Palestinian films and documentaries. Through attending rallies and actions and keeping our advocacy visible. Through checking in on, and supporting our Palestinian colleagues and community members. Through financial donations to vetted fundraisers. Through educating ourselves, and our communities, on the history of Palestine, its people, and the occupation.
I hope the people of Palestine, the children of Palestine, the healthcare workers, working out of a decimated healthcare system in Palestine, know that they are not alone, and that we are fighting for them.
• More details about the chain hunger strike are here. Some of those involved have been making videos, which have been uploaded on Instagram: @healthworkers4palestinensw
Further commentary
Watch the interview here.
An Amnesty International fieldworker describes the anguish of watching his children starve.
See Croakey’s archive of articles on Gaza
