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The Arab Network on Food Sovereignty (ANFS), People’s Coalition on Food Sovereignty (PCFS), and the undersigned organizations stand in unwavering solidarity with the oppressed and the victims of historic injustice and power imbalance, particularly with the Palestinian people.

We strongly condemn the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza that has been under a full blockade for 23 days* now, added to the 17 years of siege that had already made 65% of Gazans food insecure. This insecurity is the product of the weaponization of food by the Israeli occupation to coerce Palestinians into forfeiting their rights.

Food, water, and medical equipment have become very scarce to find in Gaza now, in addition to the complete cut off of internet, electricity, and fuel supplies into the strip. More than 2.5 million people are currently trapped in Gaza without any safe place. More than 8000 Palestinians have been murdered, including 3500+ children, and another 20,000+ were wounded *as of October 29, 2023. Hundreds of others remain trapped under rubble until this day amid the lack of necessary equipment of debris removal and the continuous bombing that is not sparing medical nor rescue teams.

Only 40 trucks of aid were allowed into Gaza since the aggression began, and they cover less than 3% of what Gaza needs per day in normal circumstances to survive. Normally, 600 trucks carrying different human and medical necessities and needs would enter daily into besieged Gaza.

The Israeli occupation has murdered 114 Palestinians in the West Bank also since the beginning of the aggression on Gaza. Daily raids, bombardments, and sieges on cities and refugee camps are being carried out by Israeli occupation forces. More than 700 Israeli military checkpoints divide the West Bank, which completely separates Al-Aghwar area that produces 80% of the food of Palestinians. Some 100,000 Palestinian families that depend on olive production are unable to access their lands for the harvest now, in Gaza and in the West Bank primarily, due to the thousands of assault rifles that have been distributed by the Israeli government on the settlers. Several Palestinians were murdered by Israeli settlers while working on their lands in the West Bank during the past week.

We extend our solidarity to the Lebanese people as well, especially in the south near the border with occupied Palestine, as they also face Israeli assaults that have displaced many people until now, prevented farmers from accessing their lands, and killed several people including journalists who were covering the developments in the area.

We call upon the global community to actively support the Palestinian people’s quest for liberation through all possible means. We emphasize the urgent need to end the occupation and to secure freedom for the resilient Palestinian people who have been struggling against Israeli occupation for 75 years.

We believe that addressing food security and the right to food is an integral part of the broader struggle for justice, peace, and dignity for all.

The situation of food insecurity in Gaza, Palestine, is extremely critical. For decades, small food producers, including fisherfolk and farmers have been denied access to their waters, land and other crucial common goods. Many were killed by Israeli forces while seeking to secure their livelihoods. The Israeli occupation has created a military exclusion zone on almost half of Gaza’s arable land, and a maritime buffer zone that allows access to barely 15% of the Mediterranean, which makes it impossible for fishermen to catch an adequate amount of fish to sustain their communities. This, added to the blockade on exports and imports, access to food, agricultural inputs, and fuel, and the repetitive aggressions turned Gaza into a cramped open-air prison where Palestinians suffer collective punishment and are deprived of their rights, including the right to adequate food. The right to food is recognized in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and is enshrined in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights which Israel has signed and ratified 57 years ago.

“The idea is to put Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger,” Dov Weisglass, advisor to former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert. This statement came in light of the “calorie count” created by the Israeli occupation to limit Gazan’s food intake to levels slightly above death-by-starvation. This has now turned into an effective death diet.

Israel’s continuous 17-year blockade has also led to a severe water crisis in Gaza, primarily due to Israel’s forced population transfers, exhaustion of Gaza’s freshwater basins, blocking Gaza’s access to the Jordan river, prohibiting the construction of wells, destroying rainwater collection facilities, and the over-pumping of the natural aquifer flowing to Gaza from the West Bank’s Jabal al-Khalil.

The food crisis has been further exacerbated by the systemic poisoning of Palestinian lands and people through frequent herbicide spraying and razing, and the repeated targeted bombings of Gaza’s water, sanitation, and agricultural infrastructure during the 14 aggressions led by the Israeli occupation on Gaza within 17 years. 2006, 2007, 2008 – 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, and again now in 2023, during which internationally forbidden weapons such as White Phosphorus are again being deployed both in Gaza and South Lebanon. Since the year 2000, the Israeli occupation has destroyed 3,000,000 fruitful trees to displace Palestinian farmers.

In his address to the General Assembly on 20 October, the special Rapporteur on the right to food Michael Fakhri said, “It is very difficult to discuss my report on pandemic recovery when we are witnessing how food is increasingly used as a weapon against civilians either though unilateral coercive measures or in armed conflict. In fact, Food is increasingly being used intentionally to starve people and trigger ethnic cleansing… such as now Israel’s denial of food, fuel, water, and medical supplies to Palestinians and other civilians in Gaza. Yesterday, a number of human rights experts like myself raised the alarm for the risk of genocide against the Palestinian people… we need to reaffirm Security Council resolution 24/17 where the Security Council strongly condemned starving civilians and the denial of humanitarian access being used as a warfare tactics.”

We condemn the renewed Israeli plans of ethnic cleansing and forced mass displacement of Palestinians in Gaza into Egypt, as well as the support and military aid of the imperialist US to the Israeli occupation throughout history that enabled its war crimes. We also denounce the stances of many European countries and the EU on the ongoing genocide, which are encouraging its advancement unabated. We encourage them to take stances that are in line with their promoted values on Human Rights in general, and the right to food in particular, and to refrain from all forms of double standards.

We call for the protection, respect, and promotion of all human rights, including the right to food. One of the best and most effective ways to do so in Gaza is by urgently applying the CFS Framework for Action for Food Security and Nutrition in Protracted Crises (CFS-FFA). The CFS-FFA provides a roadmap for improving food security and nutrition in protracted crises, with these two principles in it especially relevant and urgent now:

1) Meeting the immediate humanitarian needs of besieged Palestinians in Gaza without discrimination, and ensuring safe and unhindered access to humanitarian and food aid, and the United Nations assuming its moral responsibility to ensure that this aid reaches them.

2) Not to use food as a means of political or economic pressure and the need to refrain from taking unilateral measures that do not take into account international law, including the Charter of the United Nations, and that endanger food security and nutrition, as stipulated in the Rome Declaration of 1996. ###

Released 31 October 2023

SIGNATORIES
As of 17 December 2023; this list is regularly updated

1. Arab Network for Food Sovereignty (ANFS)
2. People’s Coalition for Food Sovereignty (PCFS)
3. Asian Rural Women’s Coalition
4. Solidarity House, Cambodia
5. Tenaganita, Malaysia
6. Tamil Nadu Women’s Forum, India
7. Vikalpani, Sri Lanka
8. Support for Women in Agriculture and Environment, Uganda
9. Peace for Life, Philippines
10. Ubinig/Narigrantha Prabartana, Bangladesh
11. Arab Group for The Protection of Nature, Arab Region
12. Roots for Equity, Pakistan
13. South Asians For Human Rights, Sri Lanka
14. Sojhla for Social Change, Pakistan
15. ASEEM India, India
16. ADD-Medenine, Tunisie
17. Dibeen for Environmental Development, Jordan
18. Rangmatipadar Adivasi Commune, India
19. Karachi High School, Pakistan
20. Institute for National and Democracy Studies (INDIES), Indonesia
21. SIBAT – Sibol ng Agham at Teknolohiya, Philippines
22. Medvin Gromada, Ukraine
23. Labour Resource Center (LRC), Bangladesh
24. Corporate Accountability, United States
25. Farmworker Association of Florida, USA
26. PAN Asia Pacific, Malaysia
27. Komunitas Perempuan Nelayan Sipitangarri, Indonesia
28. JPIC Kalimantan, Indonesia
29. Integrated Social Development Effort (ISDE) Bangladesh
30. Aurat March Lahore, Pakistan
31. Kabataan para sa Tribung Pilipino (KATRIBU), Philippines
32. SIKLAB Philippine Indigenous Youth Network, Philippines
33. Migrante Taiwan
34. Vikas Adhyayan Kendra, India
35. PCFS Europe
36. Tunisian Farmers Syndicate (SYNAGRI), Tunis
37. Zambia Social Forum (ZAMSOF), Zambia
38. Observatoire de la citoyenneté Participative, Tunis
39. Jordanian Women’s Union, Jordan
40. Palestinian Agircultural Relief Committee, Palestine
41. Gaza Urban and Peri-Urban Agriculture Platform – GUPAP, Palestine
42. Care for Cedars Association, Lebanon
43. Coalition of Lebanese Civil Society Organizations, Lebanon
44. HAWA Society for Women, Sudan
45. International Agency for Development and Resettlement – Sudan
46. Reseau Maghrebin D’associations De Developpement Local En Milieu Rural (REMADEL), Tunisia
47. National Observatory of Participatory Citizenship, Tunisia
48. Tunisian Farmer’s Union, Tunisia
49. Agriculture Cooperative Union, Yeman
50. La Fédération Nationale du Secteur Agricole (FNSA), Morocco
51. Union of Honey Bee Producers, Iraq
52. Iraqi Society for Nutrition and Food Safety, Iraq
53. Iraqi Association for the Defense of Consumer Rights, Iraq
54. Organization for Rehabilitating Society and Environment, Iraq
55. The National Federation for the Protection of the Environment in Algeria, Algeria
56. African Confederation of Artisanal Fishing Organizations, Mauritania
57. Groupement National Des Ligues Mutuelles Pastorales, Mauritania
58. Social-Life and Agricultural Development Organization, Somalia
59. AgriMovement in Lebanon
60. MEDITER – Reseau Euromediterraneen Pour La Cooperation Aisbl, Belgium
61. Palestinian Agro-Ecological Forum, Palestine
62. Italiani Senza Cittadinanza, Italy
63. SocioEconomic Action Collective – SEAC, Lebanon
64. A Growing Culture, USA
65. SERUNI, Indonesia
66. Seed In A Box, Lebanon
67. Rural Women’s Association (ALGA), Kyrgyzstan
68. Good Health Community Programmes, Kenya
69. PROPAC/CNOP Congo
70. ACTUAR, Portugal
71. Union of Agricultural Work Committees, Palestine
72. Raw Life Doula & Photography, Australia
73. KON Creative, Canada
74. Good Food Community, Philippines
75. Int’l Indigenous Peoples Movement for Self-Determination & Liberation (IPMSDL)
76. Commission 10 – Int’l League of Peoples Struggles
77. Studio ATAO, USA
78. Riot and Roux!, USA
79. Dakatra Farm , Egypt
80. International League of Peoples’ Struggle
81. Bangladeshi Queer Liberation, Canada
82. Food Today, Food Tomorrow, Philippines
83. Agroecology Research-Action Collective, North America
84. Go Pangan Lokal (Local Food Movement), Indonesia
85. Agency of Development Initiatives, Kyrgyztan
86. Dana Cooperative, Jordan
87. World Alliance of Mobile Indigenous Peoples and Pastoralists (WAMIP)
88. Yadi Gari, Canada
89. CUNY Law Environmental Justice Coalition, US
90. Science for the People, USA
91. Adelphi University, USA
92. Centre for Environment, Human Rights & Development Forum – CEHRDF, Bangladesh
93. Land in Our Names (LION), England
94. GABRIELA Alliance of Filipino Women, Philippines
95. Unidad de la Fuerza Indígena y Campesina, México
96. Center for Women’s Resources Inc., Philippines
97. HEAL (Health, Environment, Food, Labor) Food Alliance, USA
98. Soil of Cultures, New Zealand
99. Movimentu Kamponezes Timor-Leste, Timor-Leste
100. Community Development Trust, India
101. Union of Cypriots, Cyprus
102. Precisely Consulting Ltd, United Kingdom
103. National Alliance of People’s Movements, India
104. GRAIN
105. Philippines Palestine Friendship Association, Philippines
106. Polo’s Pantry, USA
107. BreadHive, USA
108. Gabriela Youth, Philippines
109. National Fisheries Solidarity Movement(NAFSO), Sri Lanka
110. Bharkhand Kisan Parishad Chandil, India
111. Zambia Social Forum, Zambia
112. National Federation of Sugar Workers, Philippines
113. Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance, Australia
114. Green Dreams of a Generation, Philippines
115. Farmworker Association of Florida, USA
116. Aliansi Gerakan Reforma Agraria, Indonesia
117. Observatoire de la Citoyenneté Participative, Tunisia
118. Sabokahan Unity of Lumad Women, Philippines
119. IBON International, Philippines
120. Jibal, Lebanon
121. Womens International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) Canada
122. Philippines Australia Solidarity Association, Australia
123. Global Peace Alliance BC Society, Canada
124. Philippine Causus for Peace, Australia
125. Disability Peoples Forum Uganda
126. Children and Young People Living for Peace (CYPLP), Nigeria
127. Institute for National and Democracy Studies (INDIES), Indonesia
128. Migrante International Taiwan
129. Experimental Farm Network, USA
130. Union of Cypriots, Cyprus