Philadelphia

The Philadelphia chapter of HealthCare Workers For Palestine (HCW4Pal) and Drexel University College of Medicine for Palestine held a rally at Rittenhouse Square in center city Philadelphia on July 14. The purpose was to call attention to the illegal use of starvation and famine against the Indigenous people of Gaza by the occupying entity Israel. 

The centerpiece was an art installation proclaiming “Starvation is Genocide” and “100% of Gaza Forced into Famine.” Boxes representing aid that has been stalled at the Egyptian border for months sat next to a puppet of President Joe Biden with bloodied hands. 

Testimonies from some of the truck drivers stalled outside Gaza crossings were printed on a banner lying on the ground next to bowls of rotting food and “bloodied” sacks of flour. The rotting food represented the frustration of the truck drivers watching valuable food rot while they waited to cross into Gaza to feed starving Palestinians. 

The bloodied flour sacks represented the Flour Massacre in February when the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) slaughtered 112 Palestinians and injured 760 more as they attempted to gather food from aid trucks. (tinyurl.com/bp7xahfm)  One banner displayed statistics of the 54% of farmland destroyed by the IOF in 2024 and the 63% of agricultural land in the West Bank stolen from Palestinians by Israeli settlers. 

Around 100 people attended the rally that began with a recorded Al-Jazeera broadcast of the Flour Massacre and social media journalist Bisan describing the starvation taking place today. Speakers included a nurse practitioner member of HCW4Pal who condemned the occupier’s illegal use of starvation as a weapon of war and demanded an end to the starvation of Gaza, the provision of aid to scale, the end to U.S. arms to Israel and the end to the Zionist occupation of Palestine. 

A HCW4Pal dietician described in great detail the devastating, lasting negative effects of malnutrition and starvation on the immune system, heart and other vital organs, cognitive ability, growth and development in children and increased risk of complications during pregnancy. A member of the Philly Palestine Coalition reminded everyone to keep our eyes focused on Gaza and not be distracted by the media circus around the U.S. presidential election. 

Several members of local mutual aid groups — Food Not Bombs-South Philly, Punks with Lunch and People’s Kitchen — made the connection that food insecurity is rampant among oppressed people in Philadelphia while our tax dollars go to militarizing the police. Philly Food Kitchen donated food that was distributed to rally participants and passersby. 

The rally ended with a talk from a Drexel University medical student who has been in contact with a Palestinian chef in Gaza supplying meals to his neighbors, who needs financial support to continue the work. The medical student, the grandchild of resistance fighters from Algeria who drove out the French colonizers, vowed to keep showing up until Palestinians too can return to their homes, and the occupying colonizers are driven out. 

In the millions, in the billions, we are all Palestinians!