Three current and former activists from MUN Students for Palestine Devoney Ellis, Sadie Mees, and Nikita Stapleton will set sail to Gaza as part of the Freedom Flotilla, a civilian-led mission carrying humanitarian supplies, such as food, water, medicine, and baby formula.
While MUN invests in genocide, three of it’s current and former students are risking their safety to deliver aid to a starving people living under oppression.
What is a more worthy cause? If history can teach us anything, silence in the face of genocide is support for genocide, and the institutions, organizations, and individuals who refused to oppose genocide will not be looked upon kindly in the future, when everyone will have been against this.
Just as Memorial University refused to divest from apartheid in South Africa, it refuses to divest from genocide in Gaza.
Memorial’s refusal to act despite students and faculty calling for a full divestment from entities involved in the genocide on Gaza, is shameful. Its treatment of student activists involved in MUN Students for Palestine has been shameful.
It is vital that MUN administration reverses course and supports their courageous students taking part in this vital and morally righteous mission by divesting the over 15 million dollars in companies connected to the genocide in Gaza.
The three activists are currently awaiting their departure in Corsica, France. The group will join the Global Sumud Flotilla, a coordinated effort of numerous small civilian vessels with delegations from over 45 countries, including the US, Algeria, Brazil, Norway, Ireland and South Africa.
The project is a continuation of previous humanitarian efforts to break Israel’s blockade on Gaza, including the Freedom Flotilla which has been ongoing since 2010. The most recent attempts made in June and July of this year, were intercepted by Israel’s military, in violation of international law according to Amnesty International.
In June, the vessel Madleen, carrying humanitarian aid, was seized by Israeli forces. All crew members were illegally detained and held in custody prior to later deportation, including well-known climate activist, Greta Thunberg, and a member of European parliament, Rima Hassan.
In this past week, the Sumud flotilla experienced two drone strikes against a civilian-occupied vessel near Tunisia. Since 2010, each attempt at breaking the blockade has been intercepted or attacked by Israel.
A very disturbing precedent has been set when a state is permitted to starve a population they essentially control, and respond with violence to any actor that attempts to intervene.
The situation in Gaza is catastrophic
Since 2007, Gaza has been under a complete military blockade enforced by Israel. The Israeli government controls all of Gaza’s imports and exports. Residents of Gaza are restricted from travelling in or out of the Strip without Israel’s permission.
In violation of international law, Israel has also entirely separated Gaza from the rest of the Palestinian territories, restricting Gazans from attending universities, accessing healthcare or visiting family and friends in the West Bank.
For 17 years, Gazans have been confined to a strip of land that is the area of Las Vegas, with one of the highest population densities in the world.
Prior to the ongoing Gaza genocide, Israel’s blockade had disastrous effects on Gaza’s economy, creating mass job losses and high unemployment. Between 2006 and 2022, Gaza’s GDP shrunk by 37%, contributing less than 18% to the overall GDP of Palestine.
Long before October 2023, Gaza faced numerous bombing campaigns from Israel over the years: in 2008-9, 2012, 2014, 2022, May 2023, and now October 2023, onwards.
The total blockade of Gaza by air, land and sea, combined with recurrent air strikes, decimated Gaza’s infrastructure, leaving the population dependent on humanitarian aid. Since October 2023, this has worsened substantially, with unemployment soaring to over 80% and most businesses destroyed.
The UN estimates that, if or when, a permanent ceasefire is reached, it would take approximately 350 years for Gaza’s economy to recover to its 2022 level.
It is no exaggeration to say that the current situation in Gaza is catastrophic. Since January 2024, Israeli settlers have physically blocked aid delivery to Gaza at various crossings, including assaulting suspected aid delivery drivers and setting fire to aid trucks.
Since October 2023, the Israeli government has weaponized humanitarian aid against Gazans, periodically interrupting the flow of aid, and allowing minimal supplies to enter only in response to international pressures.
In March 2024, the government almost entirely cut off aid deliveries, a practice that continues to this day. The restrictions on aid into Gaza have resulted in widespread forced starvation.
For the first time, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification announced on August 15 that Gaza is experiencing a famine, classed as Phase 5, the highest phase on the Acute Food Insecurity scale.
This classification is only used when a region reports at least 20% of households as having a severe lack of food, 30% of children as suffering from acute malnutrition and 2 adult deaths or 4 child deaths per day for every 10,000 people due to starvation, or malnutrition combined with disease.
Although Israel’s attacks on Gaza’s infrastructure has made it difficult to gather accurate statistics, at least 404 people, including 141 children, have died from malnutrition. Thousands more children need to be evacuated for medical treatment, which requires approval from Israeli authorities.
Not only are Gazans starving while food is being withheld just miles away, but also over 1400 Gazans have been killed while waiting to receive aid at distribution sites.
In what has been called the “Flour Massacre,” in February 2024, Israeli military opened fire on a crowd of Gazans waiting to receive food, killing approximately 112 and wounding more than 760.
Many Gazans have chosen not to go to aid distribution sites, fearing for their lives. Instead, these Gazans are at the mercy of merchants in local markets who charge exorbitant prices for the little food that is available.
Worsening this crisis, Israeli authorities have directly financed armed gangs in Gaza who attack delivery trucks and steal the paltry amount of aid that was allowed in.
With no income, no agriculture, and aid sites turned into death traps, Gazans are given little chance to survive. The ‘solutions’ currently pursued by foreign countries, including Canada, such as air-dropping aid, continue to be inadequate, even dangerous.
In August, a 15-year-old Palestinian boy was crushed to death by a pallet during an aid airdrop. Gazans and NGOs have called for the resumption of aid deliveries by land.
Civilians around the world have responded to their leaders’ lack of response by taking direct actions themselves. The Global Sumud Flotilla is the most significant coordinated direct action yet.
It is immoral to forcibly starve people. It is soul-crushing to witness children sending out their last pleas for help before their frail bodies are no longer able to keep going.
It is unconscionable that mothers in Gaza listen to their babies cry, knowing their own bodies are too weak to produce milk. It is devastating to watch elders, some of which survived the 1948 Nakba, in which Israel ethnically cleansed over 750,000 Palestinians, succumb to hunger.
The brave volunteers who are risking possible Israeli attacks and intervention in an attempt to open a humanitarian corridor and show solidarity with the people of Gaza, should not only be commended, but supported in whatever way possible.
So far, Israel has been given almost carte blanche to act outside of international law with little to no consequences.