“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute.”

• Proverbs 31:8

There comes a moment when words must carry more than opinion – they must carry truth, even if it burns. Gaza is not merely a war zone. It is not a battlefield of equals. It is, by every moral and humanitarian measure, a concentration camp of starvation.

In this narrow strip of land, over two million people – half of them children – are being confined, bombarded, and slowly starved. Not metaphorically. Not accidentally. But systematically. The deliberate destruction of hospitals, bakeries, sewage plants, and water infrastructure is not collateral damage. It is policy, sustained and calculated.

Humanitarian corridors are choked. Food supplies, when they do arrive, come under fire. Families risk their lives to collect a bag of flour. Medical workers are killed with impunity. The bodies of the wounded lie unattended, not for lack of compassion, but for lack of safe passage. It is not that the world doesn’t know – it is that the world turns away.

This is not a war. It is a siege. A slow-motion atrocity carried out before the watching eyes of a distracted, divided, and often complicit international community.

Let us be clear: the Palestinian people are not the proxy of Iran, nor Hamas, nor Hezbollah, nor Israel. They are not pawns in someone else’s ideological chessboard. They are mothers and children. Teachers and farmers. Dreamers and elders. They are not agents of terror. They are human beings, imprisoned without trial in an open-air cage of punishment and despair.

Gaza is being starved not by famine, but by human hands.

Israel, a nation born from the ashes of a terrible genocide, now perpetrates – at a different scale and in a different form – the destruction of another defenceless people. No, this is not the Holocaust. Let us not cheapen that horror with facile comparisons. But let us also not ignore what is unfolding: the systematic elimination of a people’s future through bombardment, deprivation, and the violent erasure of hope.

The slow killing of children through hunger is not an act of war. It is an act of hatred.
The bombing of surgeons and aid convoys is not a defense. It is an abomination.
The refusal to allow food, water, and medicine is not strategy. It is sin.

From a biblical perspective, this cannot stand.

“Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees… to deny justice to the oppressed and withhold food from the hungry.” — Isaiah 10:1–2

We do not need more slogans. We need moral courage.

Let my people free.
No interference from Iran.
Let my people free.
No domination by Hamas.
Let my people free.
No more threats from Hezbollah.
Let my people free.
And – most of all – no more boots, bombs, and blockades from Israel.
Let. My. People. Free.

Do not speak to us of ceasefires if the siege continues.
Do not speak to us of peace if starvation is the tool of governance.
Do not tell us this is complex. The destruction of a child’s life is not complex. It is evil.

We cry out not as diplomats, but as witnesses. We plead not for pity, but for justice.
The children of Gaza do not need your pity. They need bread. They need safety. They need tomorrow.

And if you are still unsure what to call Gaza, call it what it is:
A concentration camp of starvation.
History will remember what we called it – and what we did, or failed to do, in the face of it.

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Postscript
Some private and international initiatives have attempted to deliver aid to Gaza – by sea, through makeshift kitchens, or via cross-border supply chains. Their courage is real. But these efforts remain fragile, often obstructed, and tragically insufficient. A people cannot survive on exceptional gestures. As long as access to food is weaponised, and safe distribution is not guaranteed, Gaza remains a place of systematic starvation – a concentration camp by design, not neglect.

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Disclaimer

This article is written from a personal and humanitarian perspective. It reflects my individual conscience and is not intended as medical advice or a professional statement. I speak solely as a private citizen, not on behalf of any employer, institution, or regulatory body.

I include this disclaimer because, in Australia, individuals may submit complaints to AHPRA. However, this is not a clinical opinion – it is an expression of moral responsibility.

My father led a Dutch resistance group during World War II. They were betrayed while protecting Jews from Nazi deportation. Only he and my future mother survived. That legacy of courage and conscience compels me to speak now.

I urge fellow Australian health professionals to join in calling for urgent government action to end the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.
You can read and sign the open letter here:
👉 https://forms.gle/ymwn8K1xzzHe5FCi9

— Paul Alexander Wolf