Famine in Gaza: caring is breaking indifference

The statement by the secretary-general of the United Nations (UN) on August 22, calling the famine situation in the Gaza Strip “a man-made disaster, a moral indictment - and a failure of humanity itself”, exposes something basic: it is not an inevitable tragedy, it is something produced and sustained by human decisions.

Today, more than half a million people in Gaza are hungry. More than 12,000 children have already been identified as severely malnourished - the highest monthly number ever recorded - and the projection of children at serious risk of death from malnutrition by the end of June 2026 has jumped from 14,100 to 43,400. The question “how is it possible that in 2025 a situation like this will still be happening?” is not rhetorical; it shows the clash between all that humanity is already capable of doing technologically and what it chooses not to do in the face of those on the brink of death from lack of food. Hence the impact of the phrase: “It's a famine in 2025. A 21st century famine monitored by drones and the most advanced military technology in history”. The contrast is stark: highly sophisticated surveillance and little protection of basic life.

 When we remember that “Hunger is a problem that affects 811 million people worldwide” and that it results from inequality, poverty, wars, economic crises, poor food distribution and misuse of natural resources, Gaza ceases to be an isolated point and appears as an extreme case of a mechanism that we already know about. In conflicts, everything that sustains daily life breaks down: supplies, health, the circulation of aid, minimum security. This explains part of the escalation, but does not justify passivity.

Looking back helps us see that this repetition is not new. In May 1868, in the text “Famine in Algeria”, from the Spiritist Magazine, Captain Bourgès described scenes that could have been in an emergency report today. The full testimony he brought is here: “You would not believe how thrilled one is to see the pale and rickety corpses searching everywhere for their food, and vying with the stray dogs. In the morning, these living skeletons rush from all sides of the field and rush over the manure to extract the barley grains undigested by the horses, which they feed on immediately. Others gnaw on the bones to suck out the gelatine that can still be found in them, or eat the sparse grass that grows around the oasis. In the midst of this misery, a horrible debauchery arises that takes hold of the lower classes of the colony's population and spreads these corrosive plagues, which should be the leprosy of antiquity, into material bodies. My eyes close so as not to see such shame, and my soul goes up to the heavenly Father to ask him to preserve the good from impure contact, and to give weak men the strength not to let themselves be dragged into this evil abyss. Humanity is still a long way from the moral progress that certain philosophers believe it has already made. All I see around me are Epicureans who don't want to hear about the Spirit; they don't want to get out of their animality; their pride attributes itself to a noble origin, and yet their actions say a lot about what they once were.”.

The bridge between Algeria in 1868 and Gaza in 2025 lies less in the historical details and more in what hasn't changed: bodies reduced to the limit, a scramble for remains, a sense of moral shame and the realization of ethical backwardness. It used to be said that “humanity is still a long way from moral progress”, and now there is talk of “humanity's own failure”. The language has changed somewhat; the complaint is the same. Today, however, the distance is greater because we already have the logistical means, real-time information and technology to prevent hunger from reaching this level, and yet it is still advancing. This increases the weight of the expression “man-made disaster”.

This kind of extreme hunger in the context of conflict shows three combined layers: interests that place strategies or disputes above basic survival; deliberate or tolerated destruction of livelihoods; and a collective anesthesia that makes acceptable what should be intolerable. It's not a lack of diagnosis; it's a lack of consistent decisions to reverse priorities. When someone asks “How is this possible?”, the honest answer is: because it is still allowed. And precisely because it is allowed, it comes back as a moral accusation.

“Caring” may not sound like much, but that's where normalization begins to crack. Caring here means refusing to allow numbers to become noise and pain to be pushed away. It's the transition from emotional impact to active commitment: we cry because we recognize injustice; it also matters who bends down to wipe away those tears - welcoming, helping and sustaining, within everyone's reach, the ethical pressure for real answers.

The historical comparison leaves a clear choice: either this type of record ceases to be a piece of archive that we repeat with new dates, or we will continue to update the same phrase about “humanity's failure” in future scenarios. To call hunger a moral indictment is not to dramatize: it is to give responsibility back. And responsibility is not outsourced to “humanity” as an abstraction; it is distributed in political, economic and communication decisions and in the ability not to turn a blind eye. The famine in Gaza and the suffering in the world should matter to us!