Chef in hunger strike for Palestine says 'food used as a weapon is inhumane'
Max La Manna, chef turned activist, went viral for his hunger strike, in which he is calling on social media viewers and UK supermarkets to boycott Israeli produce - now he reflects on his journey
TikTok chef Max La Manna went viral after he stood in front of a Sainsbury's on May 13 with a sign reading: 'Day Two Of My Hunger Strike', with demands to boycott Israeli produce and end Israel's humanitarian blockade in Gaza. But after hunger striking for seven days, he had to break his fast.
In a video posted to Instagram, he said: "Feeding people is part of my job, so after witnessing desperate children and families in Gaza who were being forcibly starved by Israel, I had to do something. I didn't do much planning or strategising, I didn't call a doctor. I just called my Palestinian friend - he gave me the go ahead and I went for it."
Max said that going hunger strike meant that Palestinians were constantly on his mind. He described his mood swings as "intense", adding: "Eating no food for 166 hours started to take its toll. I had no energy, intense headaches and even engaging in conversation felt difficult." He said he broke his hunger strike in the "only way that felt appropriate" which was with Palestinian hummus and his friend by his side.
Max admitted: "In all honesty, I'm a little bit disappointed in myself. For me, deciding when not to eat is a choice.. This is not a choice for Palestinians in Gaza." But he emphasised that his plans for activism aren't over. "I need to get myself back to full health, and then I think I'm going to go again, but this time with a proper strategy in place."
Speaking to The Mirror during his hunger strike, Max said: 'As a human, but also as a chef, seeing food being used as a weapon is inhumane. No food or aid has entered Gaza in over 70 days. I've decided to stop eating to raise awareness about the forced famine happening in Palestine.'
The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement is working to end international support for Israel's oppression of Palestinians. They have put together a list of companies and products to boycott which support Israel. Max continued: 'I'm targeting all supermarkets that sell Israeli goods and products... This is in support of calls from the Palestinian led BDS campaign.'
He hoped his videos would inspire people to use their consumer power to boycott these items and demand supermarkets remove them from shelves. He also hoped that there are people working on the inside at these businesses to support this.
Max admitted that he was finding the hunger strike 'difficult'. While protesting, he only consumed water, rehydration salts, black coffee and herbal tea. However, he said it was a constant reminder of the starvation that Palestinians are enduring 'without a choice'.
For him, the fight isn't over. On March 2, Israel stopped any form of aid, including food, water and medicine, from entering the region, as reported by Human Rights Watch. Israel announced that it will now allow a "basic amount of food" to enter Gaza to ensure that "no starvation crisis develops" on May 18. This comes after 10 weeks of blockade, as reported by the BBC. However, Max still plans on continuing his strike.
According to a report by the UN, Palestinians are still struggling to find food and water due to Israel's continued blockade on all humanitarian and commercial access. On 22 May, the Palestinian Red Crescent told reporters that no Palestinians in Gaza had yet received aid deliveries that had crossed over the border, as reported by The Guardian. They added that sending so few trucks was an 'invitation for killing' because of the risk of mobs.
Meanwhile, Israel's previous policies have created a starvation risk for millions. On 12 May, the UN World Food Programme warned that 470,000 Gazans "are facing catastrophic hunger" because of Israel's action to shut down aid. It's also claimed that over 116,000 metric tons of food aid was being blocked.
While Max said he received some death threats, the reaction was overwhelmingly positive. 'I have appreciated seeing support from some prominent chefs and food creators and hope this continues,' he said. "I think more and more people are feeling empowered to speak up and take action."
On May 19, Co-op board members voted to stop selling Israeli products on their shelves – a vote which could come into effect during the summer, as reported by The Telegraph. The advocacy group Palestine Solidarity UK said the decision showed Co-op members would not support Israel's 'apartheid economy'. Max has since posted on his social media celebrating the news, which he said is "a huge victory for the Palestinian-led BDS movement."
The hunger striker has also called on politicians to act. In the end of his Instagram video, Max called on David Lammy, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, to "take action" by calling for an end to the blockade of humanitarian aid in Gaza. David has previously lobbied for Israel to restore humanitarian access to Gaza, according to the UK Parliament.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
North Wales Chronicle
2 hours ago
- North Wales Chronicle
27 Palestinians killed in latest violence in Gaza
The 20-month war with Hamas has raged on even as Israel has opened a new front with heavy strikes on Iran that sparked retaliatory drone and missile attacks. Another 11 Palestinians were killed overnight near food distribution points run by an Israeli and US-supported humanitarian group, in the latest of almost daily shootings near the sites since they opened last month. Palestinian witnesses said Israeli forces fired on the crowds, while the military said it has only fired warning shots near people it described as suspects approaching its forces. The sites are in military zones that are off limits to independent media. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a private contractor that operates the sites, said they were closed on Saturday, but witnesses said thousands had gathered desperate for food as Israel's blockade and military campaign have driven the territory to the brink of famine. The al-Awda Hospital said it received eight bodies and at least 125 wounded people from a shooting near a GHF site in central Gaza. Mohamed Abu Hussein, a resident of the built-up Bureij refugee camp nearby, said Israeli forces opened fire towards the crowd about a half a mile from the food distribution point. He said he saw several people fall to the ground as thousands ran away. In the southern city of Khan Younis, the Nasser Hospital said it received 16 dead, including five women, from multiple Israeli strikes late on Friday and early on Saturday. It said another three men were killed near two GHF aid sites in the southernmost city of Rafah, now a mostly uninhabited military zone. Israel and the US say the new system is intended to replace a UN-run network that has distributed aid across Gaza through 20 months of war. They accuse Hamas of siphoning off the aid and reselling it to fund its militant activities. UN officials deny Hamas has diverted significant amounts of aid and say the new system is unable to meet mounting needs. They say the new system has militarised aid by allowing Israel to decide who has access and by forcing Palestinians to travel long distances or relocate again after waves of displacement. They say the UN has struggled to deliver aid even after Israel eased its blockade last month because of military restrictions and rising lawlessness. Hamas, which is allied with Iran, sparked the war when its fighters led a rampage into southern Israel on October 7 2023, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251. They still hold 53 hostages, less than half of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed more than 55,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which has said women and children make up more than half of the dead but does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. The offensive has destroyed vast areas of Gaza and displaced 90% of the population of two million Palestinians, leaving them almost entirely reliant on international aid. The war has drawn in Iran and its other allies across the region, igniting a chain of events that led to Israel's major strikes on Iran's nuclear and military facilities on Friday.
NBC News
3 hours ago
- NBC News
Crushed by Israeli missile strikes, Gaza's hospitals are barely functioning
Israeli military assaults on the Gaza Strip's hospitals have ramped up in recent weeks to the highest level so far this year, bringing a health system already weakened by 19 months of war to a breaking point. NBC News has analyzed 27 videos and images from the last two months taken by civilians and our own journalists on the ground to piece together a picture of the full extent of the destruction of a health system engulfed in war. In footage from a surveillance camera, men, women and children could be seen crossing the entrance to Khan Younis' European Hospital moments before a missile hit, blasting people into the air as others scattered in panic. Another video, posted to social media and verified by NBC News, showed the fiery aftermath of an explosion at a medical warehouse near Al-Awda Hospital, in northern Gaza, which has been attacked repeatedly, including on May 22 and again on May 24. 'Nearly all hospitals in Gaza are now damaged or destroyed, and half of them are no longer operational,' Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, told NBC News. During the war, Gaza's hospitals have eked back services, only to be repeatedly struck or besieged again. Hospitals are protected under international humanitarian law, butIsrael has maintained that Hamas uses hospitals and medical centers for military activities, opening them to attack. Hamas has denied doing so. Humanitarian groups, including the United Nations, havesaid Israel has not provided sufficient information to substantiate many of its claims and have called for independent investigations of Israel's attacks and Hamas' alleged misuse of the facilities. Earlier this week, however, the Israeli military gave a small group of reporters a tour of a tunnel that was uncovered beneath the European Hospital, where it said it had recovered the body of Hamas' military chief Mohammed Sinwar. 'We cannot stress this enough: Hospitals must never be militarized or targeted. If they are, it may constitute a war crime,' Laerke said. Of Gaza's 36 hospitals, none are fully functioning; 17 are providing partial services, and 19 are not functioning at all, according to World Health Organization data from Monday. The wider health system, including ambulances, field hospitals and clinics, has been attacked more than 700 times since the start of the war, killing at least 900 people and injuring more than 1,000. (The death toll across Gaza is more than 55,000, according to the health ministry.) After a ceasefire was called in January, Israeli military attacks on Gaza's health system had abated. The truce fell apart in March, and WHO data shows a ramping up of attacks in recent weeks. While the organization tallied five attacks on Gaza's health system in April, after the first three weeks of May, the number of attacks had quadrupled to 21, with at least three more attacks since, including on the vicinity of a dialysis center at the Indonesian Hospital on June 1 and strikes on Al-Aqsa and Al-Ahli Hospitals on June 4 and 5. In addition, hostilities near Al-Amal Hospital have rendered it 'out of service,' the WHO said Monday. The earliest attack recorded by NBC News during that two-month period was on April 2, when an Israeli airstrike hit a UNRWA clinic in Jabalia, north of Gaza City, that was housing displaced people. Video captured by NBC News on the ground documented the chaotic aftermath: walls crushed to rubble, charred mattresses, furniture blasted into shards. A child's small, shrouded body was loaded onto a donkey cart to be taken to the morgue. In another case, the Israel Defense Forces struck two hospitals on the same day, May 13, both in Khan Younis. Video verified by NBC News shows several large plumes of smoke rising from the grounds of the European Hospital. Palestinian health officials said at least 16 people were killed and dozens more injured. The WHO said the facility had been forced to suspend services. Also struck that day was the Nasser Medical Complex. Video posted by the U.N. showed scattered debris, twisted hospital beds and damaged equipment. It was the fourth time Nasser had been hit during the war, according to the U.N., with the latest strike killing two people and injuring a dozen others. In a statement in response to those attacks, the IDF said its forces had targeted a command and control center located at Nasser Hospital and 'a Hamas underground terrorist infrastructure site' underneath the European Hospital. The IDF provided evidence of what it said was a Hamas tunnel beneath the European Hospital. It did not, however, provide evidence for the command and control center at Nasser, or for the following cases, but broadly said: 'The Hamas terrorist organization continues to use hospitals in the Gaza Strip for terrorist activity.' NBC News is not able to independently verify the IDF's statements.
NBC News
3 hours ago
- NBC News
Israeli fire kills 23 people in Gaza, many at aid site, medics say
Israeli fire and airstrikes killed at least 23 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip, most of them near an aid distribution site operated by the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, local health authorities said. Medics at Al-Awda and Al-Aqsa Hospitals in central Gaza areas, where most of the casualties were moved to, said at least 15 people were killed as they tried to approach the GHF aid distribution site near the Netzarim corridor. The rest were killed in separate attacks across the enclave, they added. There has been no immediate comment by the Israeli military or the GHF on Saturday's incidents. The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. The Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Saturday at least 274 people have so far been killed, and more than 2,000 wounded, near aid distribution sites since the GHF began operations in Gaza. Later on Saturday, the Israeli military ordered residents of Khan Younis and the nearby towns of Abassan and Bani Suhaila in the southern Gaza Strip to leave their homes and head west towards the so-called humanitarian zone area, saying it would forcefully work against 'terror organizations' in the area. The war in Gaza erupted 20 months ago after Hamas-led militants raided Israel and took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, on October 7, 2023, Israel's single deadliest day. Israel's military campaign since has killed more than 55,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to health authorities in Gaza, and flattened much of the densely populated strip, which is home to more than two million people. Most of the population is displaced, and malnutrition is widespread. Despite efforts by the United States, Egypt, and Qatar to restore a ceasefire in Gaza, neither Israel nor Hamas has shown willingness to back down on core demands, with each side blaming the other for the failure to reach a deal.
