According to a joint statement published last month by over 240 international human rights organizations, more than 500 Palestinians have been killed and almost 4,000 injured for trying to access aid at GHF sites. Israeli forces and armed groups routinely open fire on starving civilians seeking food. GHF massacres have been documented by firsthand Palestinian accounts and Israeli soldiers who admitted they were ordered to open fire on unarmed Gazans seeking aid. U.S. aid sites have been called “killing fields,” “death traps,” and “the concentration camps of our time.”

Out of these dire conditions, Palestinian organizations in the solidarity movement brought a direct ask to Jewish Voice for Peace: Center the forced starvation of Gaza in their organizing. This message was disseminated at the JVP National Members’ Meeting in May, where local JVP leaders — including those from Chicago — were directed to discuss specifics with their chapters.

“In conversation with the chapter, we decided there is no better way to highlight what starvation is doing to the people of Gaza than to do a solidarity hunger strike,” Bohrer said. They saw the hunger strike as an intuitive way to refuse any pretense that Jewish life is more important than Palestinian life. The message was simple and effective: “While Gazans cannot eat, we will not eat.” This escalation had the dual purpose of centering the forced starvation in Gaza in public discourse and pressuring politicians into action.

In response to the same crisis, but with a broader scope, JVP-Chicago launched its own indefinite hunger strike on June 16 during a press conference at Federal Plaza, visible from the offices of their elected officials. Over the next 18 days, they co-organized 23 events with 36 movement organizations. Fourteen solidarity strikes were launched across the country, and a network of 60 local volunteers stepped up to support the hunger strikers, while JVP-Chicago took the fight to their senator’s doorstep.