Jerusalem: Fr. Ibrahim Faltas, Vicar of the Custody of the Holy Land, has once again raised his voice for the suffering people of Gaza, portraying a reality where justice is not only longed for it is starved for.
For months, Gaza has been cut off from essential humanitarian supplies. No food. No medicine. Limited electricity. And relentless bombings. What was already a devastating death toll from attacks now grows with an equally harrowing figure: those dying from starvation. To the wounded, the orphaned, and those buried beneath rubble, we must now add the unseen victims those whose lives were stolen by hunger.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied,” Fr. Faltas reflects, anchoring his grief in Scripture. But the suffering in Gaza the helplessness, the abandonment threatens even the deepest reserves of faith. Still, he insists, hope must endure. The belief that the starving and the parched will one day be fulfilled is the only flame left to light the pursuit of justice.
This past Sunday, thousands in Gaza flooded the streets in anguish, no longer able to bear the silence of the world. Their message was simple: our children are dying from hunger. After nearly two years of blockade and bombardment, the people of Gaza are emaciated physically and spiritually. Food, medicine, and even electricity lie just kilometers away, intentionally withheld. It is not only cruel it is inhumane. The constant wailing of ambulances is no longer a warning; it is a dirge echoing through the deafness of a global conscience numbed by indifference.
Fr. Faltas condemns this moral catastrophe: a world that elevates profit and power while reducing human dignity to collateral damage. He calls it a scandal a shame no generation can erase.
Elderly residents, children, and people with disabilities the most vulnerable are now forced to live in tents, if not in the open sky. Gaza’s homes are gone. And now, their land may follow. Death in Gaza is not just delivered by bombs it comes slowly through malnutrition, as thousands of children waste away. The world watches, stunned perhaps, but unmoved. In one heart-wrenching incident, 900 people were killed while standing in line for bread. Most were fathers desperate to bring something home to their starving children, only to return to lifeless bodies.
One viral video showed a gaunt old man collapsing and dying from hunger and heat while queuing for food. These are not stories of the past they are Gaza’s daily reality. These are our fellow human beings children, elderly, families who deserve dignity regardless of their nationality, their religion, or their geography.
It is the haunting images of starving children, of injured elderly, of disabled civilians that have pierced the conscience of the world. Those who feel powerless, those who refuse to be silent spectators to genocide, are shaken. Gaza’s suffering has triggered an outpouring of compassion and protest from people of goodwill across the globe.
From the Pope’s urgent pleas to the unrelenting sirens, from street demonstrations to political appeals, many voices have spoken yet the violence continues. The oppressors remain unmoved. But Fr. Faltas believes that the truth cannot be buried. The wounds of Gaza are deep, and the record of denied rights is indelible.
The eyes of Gaza’s children, swollen with hunger and grief, are not just a cry they are a demand. A demand for peace. A demand for justice. A demand for humanity. Fr. Faltas ends his plea not with despair, but with defiance a hunger and thirst for righteousness that refuses to be silenced.