Our Body/Minds Must Be Fed
- Disability Justice Network of Ontario
- Aug 5
- 3 min read
Responding to Israel’s Dehumanization of Disabled Palestinians in Gaza during Genocide + Famine
Since March…
Israel has been blocking all aid into Gaza, creating a crisis on several fronts and deliberately starving the people of Gaza. Countless aid flotillas and marches have all been stopped before reaching Palestine as Israel maintains a constant stream of propaganda to downplay or bury these facts in popular media.
After Israel’s blockade of traditional aid channels in Gaza, it established the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) which has been criticized and condemned by the UN and other humanitarian organizations because of its militarized operations that serve as a death trap. According to the UN, 615 people have been killed near GHF distribution sites.
GHF also has a local connection, its spokesperson is Israeli restaurant owner Shahar Segal—whose assets include Toronto restaurant, Miznon.
As Traditional Media…
finally acknowledges this famine, suffering, and genocide, Israel has responded with a renewed campaign to attack the experiences of children and youth in Gaza.
Recent media, like in the New York Times, have highlighted the experiences of famine in Gaza. Particularly, those of disabled children: Mohammad al-Mutawaq, an 18 month old boy, and Osama al-Rakab, a 5 year old boy.
This reporting highlights the stark realities of famine + the complicity of groups like the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in outright murder and further disablement.
We cannot allow the world to look away.
The Western Gaze…
has once again settled on an intensely voyeuristic lens to create much of this media coverage on the struggle of Palestinian children in the grip of famine and genocide. The suffering experienced by Palestinians cannot become sensationalist fodder for journalists in the West to further exploit.
But, in spite of this, we cannot deny that such reports have brought renewed mainstream attention to the active, current actions taking place to further Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian nation.
In the days since…
some of these reports were first made, however, so-called independent journalists and Zionist propagandists have put pressure on the New York Times and other outlets to highlight these children’s experiences of disability as the central cause for their current condition—not the famine or genocide. While they did not go as far as many fascists demanded, the New York Times did offer a partial correction to their cover story that included Mohammad.
The Defence that…
Israel offers the world, then, in response to these images and stories is that journalists have misled us: these children aren’t starving, they’re just disabled.
The active position of the Israeli state and their allies in the media is that suffering for our siblings’ body/minds is to be discounted, to be made lesser.
Disability does not discount or deflect from the reality of famine, violence, disablement, and death in Gaza or elsewhere across Palestine. If anything, it highlights these intentional acts all the more.
Israel and its proxies…
in non-profit organizations and businesses like to pretend that they care about disabled body/minds.
We see their propaganda where they talk of their “spectrum of talent” within the IOF that murders our Palestinian siblings. We know that so much money flows into disability organizing in Canada and elsewhere—all earned from exploitation across Palestine.
But no matter how much accesswashing and carewashing the genocidal regime produces as propaganda, we know the truth from their words.
We Know that:
Disabled body/minds need to be fed.
Israel is starving our siblings in Palestine.
No propaganda can change that.
Resources:
For links to support organizations and to our past statements:
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