A group of French healthworkers who launched a movement named Hungry for Justice for Palestine are in their third week of a hunger strike, to raise awareness over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and alleged war crimes committed by the Israeli army. After speaking to the French Senate on Tuesday, yesterday they sounded the alarm to MEPs in Brussels.
Hungry for Justice for Palestine was launched on 31 March in Marseille by French healthworkers who had recently returned from Gaza as an "independent, apolitical, secular and cross-party initiative", according to its website.
Twenty of its members are now on their 25th day of a hunger strike – to denounce what they call French and European Union inaction and silence in the face of alleged war crimes committed by the Israeli army in Gaza.
They are protesting the medical blockade that has been levelled against Gaza and attacks on Palestinian medical personnel.
A delegation from the organisation reported their experiences working in Gaza to the European Parliament on Wednesday.
Israel assault has turned Gaza into 'humanitarian hellscape': UN
The decision to go on hunger strike was led by French infectious disease specialist and emergency doctor Pascal André, who told MEPs about the atrocities these medical professionals have witnessed in Gaza, while the "cowardice" and "complicity" of European states continues, he said.
Speaking before the French senate the day before, a visibly weakened Pascal said: "We're hungry for justice, thirsty for justice."
He explained that he was fasting on behalf of the people of Gaza, to push decision-makers to act.
“We are up against politicians and a government that is not upholding the law. It’s outrageous," he told RFI. "Not only is the population of Gaza and the West Bank, the Palestinian people, dying if we remain silent, but so is this declaration right next to me in the senate, he added, pointing to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on the wall.
Israel has blocked deliveries of humanitarian aid into the Gaza enclave for more than 50 days.
“Right now, it is probably the worst humanitarian situation ever seen throughout the war in Gaza,” said the UN's humanitarian aid spokesperson Jens Laerke.
More than 2.1 million Gazans are facing acute shortages of food, medicine, fuel and clean water, the UN said.
France, Germany and the UK have issued a joint statement calling on Israel to lift the blockade.
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Khaled Benboutrif, an emergency physician in Toulouse, has taken part in several humanitarian missions to the Gaza Strip and is haunted by what he saw there.
He describes what's happening as “genocide” since the attacks target not only civilians but all professions – from journalists to Palestinian doctors.
Joining the hunger strike in solidarity was, he said, the least he could do.
“I joined this fasting and hunger strike movement to denounce [the situation], to call for the application of humanitarian law, local law and international law. The people responsible – elected officials, figures in the cultural and scientific spheres and trade unions – are supposed to take action to uphold the law,” he told RFI.
The movement is calling for an immediate ceasefire, an end to all economic and military cooperation with Israel and enforcement of the International Criminal Court's arrest warrants.
'We cannot do it alone'
Last week, French President Emmanuel Macron told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Natanyahu in a phonecall that the suffering of Gazan civilians "must end" and that only a ceasefire in Gaza could free remaining Israeli hostages.
He also called for the prospect of the two-state solution to be revisited.
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Despite limited political and media coverage of the hunger strikers' tour of France, they remain determined.
“I heard Adir’s last breath after his baby died. I'm here for them," says Imane, a nurse who recently returned from Gaza.
"I continue to hope that one day the Palestinian people will be free, will have received justice and reparations. Only then can we speak of dialogue and peace.”
Speaking at the discussion in Brussels on Wednesday, MEP Rima Hassan of France Unbowed said: “We owe a debt of gratitude to these doctors for their bravery working in Gaza and continuing the fight here today. We need to accelerate action to end this genocide. But we cannot do it alone. The Left has led this charge in the European Parliament, but we also need our allies in other political groups to get behind us in calling this out for what it is: it is genocide.”
Nearly 200 people – from Geneva to Madrid, and in Beirut – have joined the movement so far. Its members hope it will grow into a much broader European initiative. Even if, as Imane fears, "it’s already too late".
