Editorial – Diary of a starving journalist

«When you are starving, pain invades your head like a crown of thorns that you cannot remove… You feel dizzy in the morning and the evening… You wonder: is it due to a lack of carbohydrates, protein, or a feeling of humiliation?… Everything we have seen or read about hunger is just a naive conception. True hunger can only be understood by those who have been forced to experience it.»

These are the words of Sami Abou Salem, a Palestinian journalist besieged in Gaza with his family. He uses social media as a diary where he shares his thoughts and experiences. The journalist describes how hunger makes you feel empty inside, as if your stomach and intestines were hanging by a thread, forcing you to move slowly and carefully. When you walk, distances seem longer and your feet feel heavy. And when you meet a friend on your way, even if you haven’t seen them in ages, you avoid them because you have no energy left to spare. As a journalist, he sees so many stories to report. But he is forced to ignore them because he no longer has the strength to tell them.

 When you are hungry, your sense of smell becomes more acute and your hearing more sensitive, according to Abu Salem. The siege and hunger seem to have brought him back to the bottom of Maslow’s pyramid. For now, only physiological needs matter: What will we eat tomorrow, at what price, and will there be any food on the market?   Everything else is irrelevant. Neither the number of martyrs, nor the statements of the occupying army, nor the summons to leave Gaza… His fear? That hunger could deprive the population of its “humanity.” Because the instinct for survival ultimately prevails. Between rescuing a wounded person and going to fetch a bag of flour, the choice is quickly made.

Hunger seems worse than bombs…