HUNGRY FOR CHANGE
BY KYLA PASCAL + KATHRYN LENNON
Weaponizing Food in Gaza
Since Oct. 7, more than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed and some two million have been displaced, representing 85 percent of the population in Gaza. Through Instagram, we’ve been able to bear witness to first-person accounts of increased violence, death, and desperation from Gazans, as they face occupation and genocide.
Food is at the heart of many of their stories. The stories we hear about are about starvation and the struggles to find the necessities of life in besieged Gaza. They are about the highly restricted and insufficient movement of food aid into Gaza. They are about Israeli soldiers looting and cooking in evacuated Gazan kitchens. They are about Palestinians resorting to making bread out of animal feed in the absence of flour. They are about people transporting food supplies across streets via homemade trolleys to avoid the line of fire, and young children lining up for hours to get small rations of food and water for their families. We’ve watched Palestinians mourn their thousand-year-old olive trees, crying as occupation soldiers destroy trees they have tended since their youth. We’re witnessing the ways food is bound up in oppression, appropriation, and colonialism.
Food is a basic human right, and the control of it is a wicked and age-old tool of settler colonialism.
Food is a basic human right, and the control of it is a wicked and age-old tool of settler colonialism. Israel’s current siege, blockade, and bombardment of Gaza stands upon decades of ongoing colonization, occupation, and displacement of the Palestinian people. This has reduced the ability of Palestinian farmers, fishers, pastoralists, and food producers to feed their communities.
Israel targets many of the culinary ingredients that are core to Palestinian identity and diets. For example, za’atar is a quintessential Palestinian herb and is seen as a symbol of Palestinian identity and culture. A 1977 Israeli law forbade the harvesting of wild za’atar, declaring it an endangered and protected species. Palestinians who harvest or transport the herb face fines, confiscation, or imprisonment. This injustice is depicted in Jumana Manna’s 2022 film, Foragers.
Other staples of Gazan diets are also controlled by Israel. In the 1950s, Israel banned the herding of black goats—the most common type of livestock kept by Palestinian Bedouin pastoralists. Israel also restricts fishing, limiting the distance from shore it allows Gazan fishers to do their work, meaning that they cannot access larger, more nutritious fish. Further, the burning and bulldozing of ancient olive groves is a devastating tactic used to claim land for Israeli settlements, disrupt income for Palestinians, and clear space for the building of the besieging wall. These tactics of occupation result in violence to the land, the body, and culture.
Yet, amid the scenes of devastation, we continue to see stories of survival, resilience, resistance, and pride. Displaced Gazans are baking bread out of makeshift ovens, cooking pita in tents and feeding all their neighbours, savouring the first eggs they’ve eaten in months by making a dish of Bayd wa Bandoura—eggs and tomatoes—and creating doughnuts and pizza on coal stoves with utter ingenuity. These stories have shown us the pride that Palestinians worldwide have for their cuisine, from chefs and cookbook authors, to home cooks and restaurant owners. There is a deep love of fresh ingredients, largely Indigenous to the region, including the richest green olive oil, the smoothest tahini, and the tangiest za’atar.
“When you are expelled from your lands, eating the food that used to grow in your backyard is a reminder of where we come from and what we are fighting for.” – Ranya El-Sharkawi
You cannot separate people from their food. Food is able to nourish the soul, even in the most daunting times. It is bound up in liberation, sovereignty, and the land. As diasporic Palestinian writer Ranya El-Sharkawi says in issue 1 of Hungry Zine (2021), “My Palestinian identity, like a bowl of zaatar, is replenished daily by the hands of Tata and Sedo so that it is never empty and feels just like home… when you are expelled from your lands, eating the food that used to grow in your backyard is a reminder of where we come from and what we are fighting for.”
Kathryn 君妍 Lennon is a writer, editor, gardener, and co-creator of Hungry Zine. She has mixed Cantonese and Irish ancestry and works in community planning and food policy.
Kyla Pascal is an artist, community builder, and co-creator of Hungry Zine. She is an Afro-Indigenous (Dominican/Métis) woman who is passionate about Indigenous solidarity, community health, and food justice.