PHILADELPHIA (May 28, 2025) – Today, thousands of people are fasting in solidarity with people in Gaza, where Israel is starving over two million Palestinians by preventing all food and other lifesaving aid from entering. The #FastForGaza is taking place on World Hunger Day, which happens every year on May 28. The fast is organized by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a Quaker organization that has worked in the occupied Palestinian territory since 1948.
Over two months ago, Israel—with full support from the U.S.—illegally blocked all food, water, medicine, humanitarian aid, and commercial supplies from entering Gaza while it continued its extensive bombing across the Gaza Strip. This means that Palestinians, including pregnant women, children, medically vulnerable people, and the elderly, have almost no access to food, drinkable water, medicines, and shelter. Many children have already died from malnutrition. The one-day solidarity fast organized by AFSC is part of a larger movement of fasts and hunger strikes that students, faith groups, and peace and justice organizations are undertaking across the globe.
To date, more than a thousand people have committed signed AFSC's #FastForGaza pledge that reads: “On May 28, World Hunger Day, I pledge to fast in solidarity with the people of Gaza. To protest Israel’s use of starvation as a weapon of war, I will eat no food and drink nothing but water from sunrise to sunset.”
Many AFSC staff are participating in the fast, including Kerri Kennedy, AFSC’s Associate General Secretary for International Programs. “Palestinians – including children – are dying from malnutrition and airstrikes while thousands of trucks full of food wait at the borders, blocked from entering by the Israeli military,” said Kennedy. “Israel is killing first responders. blocking aid access, and putting an inexperienced U.S. firm staffed with private security contractors in charge of humanitarian response while long-established humanitarian organizations are denied access in Gaza. We are calling on the international community to put pressure on Israel to lift the siege and let lifesaving food and supplies into Gaza, upholding humanitarian principles and international law. We are also calling on the United States to stop arming and funding Israel’s genocide.”
In addition to fasting, AFSC is organizing constituents to call Congress. They are urging their members of congress to urgent public support:
- The immediate, full, and unrestricted resumption of critical aid into Gaza according to humanitarian principles.
- An immediate, unconditional, and permanent ceasefire and the complete withdrawal of the Israeli military from Gaza.
- An end to U.S. arms sales and military support for Israel.
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The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) promotes a world free of violence, inequality, and oppression. Guided by the Quaker belief in the divine Light within each person, we nurture the seeds of change and the respect for human life to fundamentally transform our societies and institutions. We work with people and partners worldwide, of all faiths and backgrounds, to meet urgent community needs, challenge injustice, and build peace.