“Forced Famine Grips Gaza, Salt and Water Cannot Sustain Life,” is the headline on a July 19 press release issued by the Doctors Against Genocide. It begins, “Gaza has passed the breaking point. A deliberate, systematic starvation campaign is underway, and the medical consequences are devastating.” The DAG release seeks “an emergency appeal for immediate global action” as reports “flood in from all over Gaza,” that entire communities are surviving on “nothing but salt and water.”
The DAG release goes on: “At Al-Nasser Medical Complex and across Gaza, patients are collapsing in droves, suffering from severe exhaustion, muscle wasting, and signs of organ failure. These are not rare cases; this is widespread, this is mass murder live-streamed. Desperate questions are coming in: Can salt and water keep us alive?” The release then provides a medical description of the human body’s timetable of the stages of starvation: “Day 0-3: the body survives on glycogen. … Day 3-10: Critical: Malnutrition sets in. Weakness, confusion, and collapse begin. Day 10+: Very Dangerous: Irreversible damage. Muscle and organ failure. Death is imminent.” Against this knowledge, recall that the siege of Gaza has been well beyond 130 days with no food delivered.
