A group of Maine residents were set to begin a 40-day hunger strike on Thursday, joining a national wave of similar actions protesting Israel’s blockade of Gaza and the skyrocketing levels of hunger in the territory.
The Maine Coalition for Palestine announced this week that 25 people would strike to draw attention to the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
“For 19 months, we’ve done everything in our power to stop this genocide,” said Erin Kiley, one of the hunger strikers, in an email to the Guardian. “Powerful people who can make a difference need to know that we’re willing to starve for justice. There’s no business as usual during a holocaust of children.”
She said the group was calling for the resumption of unfettered humanitarian aid to Gaza and an end to US arms sales to Israel, among other demands, and that if they “are not met within 40 days, we’re committed to escalating pressure, but we haven’t decided what that looks like yet”.
The group says that some participants plan to limit their intake to 250 calories a day, which they say is “in-line with the caloric intake of 90% of Gazans under the ongoing Israeli military blockade”, while others plan to observe a Ramadan-style fast for 40 days, consuming nothing, or only water, from dawn until dusk.
The Maine group said it was answering the call of Veterans for Peace, a non-profit organization that also begins a 40-day fast for Gaza on Thursday, demanding a “resumption of humanitarian aid under UN authority to Gaza” and that the “US stop arming Israel”.
Their action is part of a broader wave of such actions across the United States in recent weeks. Israel has blocked the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, including food, water and medicine, for 11 weeks, while continuing to bomb the area. This week it began allowing a small trickle of aid to enter in response to international criticism, though humanitarian organizations say the amount is wholly insufficient and inadequate for the population’s needs.
The wave of hunger strikes began on US campuses, with student protesters who say the action is intended to show solidarity with the people in Gaza, and to demand that their schools divest from companies that they say are complicit in the war.
Campuses have been quieter this year in the face of a protest crackdown by both universities and the Trump administration, but recent weeks have seen renewed actions before commencement season and as the situation in Gaza worsens.
At Yale University, several students have been on hunger strike since 10 May. In California, more than 30 students from the California State University (CSU) system, Stanford University and the University of California at Los Angeles began hunger strikes earlier this month in “solidarity with the two million Palestinians at risk of starvation in Gaza”.
At Stanford, around two dozen students were on hunger strike as of Monday. The protesters are demanding that the university divest from companies “that profit from Israel’s siege of Gaza”, drop the charges against students and alumni arrested during a protest last year and lift the university’s “post-encampment speech restrictions”, among other demands.
At the University of Oregon, a coalition primarily led by the university’s chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace began a hunger strike there on 19 May, demanding the university divest from companies it says are complicit in genocide, fulfill its commitment to provide scholarships to five students from Gaza and lift restrictions relating to protest on campus.
At San Francisco State University, students ended their hunger strike on 12 May after reaching an agreement with the university, which reportedly committed to “expanding implementation of our divestment policy” and to working toward an academic partnership with Palestinian universities, among other concessions. The university last year said it would divest from companies that profit from weapons manufacturing in an agreement that “is not region-specific”, it told the Guardian.
Meanwhile, students at CSU Long Beach recently concluded a 12-day hunger strike, saying in a statement that “this is not a retreat but rather a recognition that our bodies must heal so that we can continue the shared struggle with renewed strength”.
At UCLA, one student, Maya Abdullah, was hospitalized on the ninth day of her hunger strike, the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter there said on Monday.
In a video posted to her Instagram on 20 May, Abdullah said that on the ninth day of her strike, she “unexpectedly passed out at my school and had to be rushed to the hospital”.
Abdullah said that the UCLA administration did not respond to notice of her hospitalization, which she said she found “disheartening”.
In a statement on Wednesday, a spokesperson for UCLA said: “[W]e have a long history of supporting the free expression of different points of view. We strongly urge all Bruins to peacefully express themselves and exercise their First Amendment Rights in ways that are safe. We will continue to make support available to all students through UCLA’s Student Health Services and other campus offices.”
