‘Too hungry to think, too weak to stand upright. Concentration fades’: The struggle to stay focused among scholars in Gaza | Ahmed Kamal Junina

I It must be admitted: I wrote this article while I was hungry – too hungry to think clearly, too weak to sit upright for a long time. I am not ashamed of because my hunger was intentional. Even if it decayed me, I rejected hunger. I can’t survive.

Since March 2, 2025 Israel A total blockade was created in Gaza. Very little aid – food, medicine, fuel – is being added or distributed. The market was empty, with bakeries, community kitchens and gas stations all closed.

On July 27, the World Health Organization 74 deaths confirmed From Gaza’s “malnutrition” this year – 63 in July. Among the deceased were children under 24 years of age and a large child. Hunger is an avalanche and almost unstoppable.

one Aid trick stream is discarded. Humanitarian institutions Médecinsinsfrontières These airdrops are “notoriously ineffective and dangerous”. Distribution points supported by us and Israel Gaza Humanitarian Foundation Condemned as a “death trap” which is a warning to the system by the United Nations Violation of humanitarian principles And spend more than it saves.

Famine is no longer a threat – it is here. Sometimes, when I try to modify a paragraph, my stomach cramps. My fingers felt dry and painful due to the lack of fluid. hunger Very big. I read it, but hunger yelled in my ear. I wrote it, but every keystroke will hit.

My thoughts surfaced as I try to keep my attitude in mind the meager pleasure of drone quiet: What rabbit hole would I fall if I were in the library? Oh, and have coffee between articles. Sandwich between sentences. Snacks hang out with the latest issue of TESOL quarterly.

I wonder: How can I keep my mind clear when my body becomes so thin and dehydrated?

Hunger begins with the rumbling sound, and it spreads so quickly. My legs barely took me to the nearest Internet Cafe. There, I tried to keep up with work and commitment, recharge my device, and get in touch with the outside world for a brief time. But, thanks to a heavy laptop bag on my shoulder, the journey doesn’t feel like a short walk, but crossing the desert.

Sometimes, survival comes down to a small scent bag, a peanut-based nutrient paste that is usually distributed for free in the famine area, but is sold here for about $3.50, a price that many people no longer can afford. If you are more lucky, you may buy some fortified cookies that are overpriced.

But the problem is not just about paying for food. It’s about getting the money first. Every bank Gaza Crushed, no single running ATM left, cash is both scarce and essential. Online trading or EFTPO is not common here – almost all purchases depend on cash.

After nearly two years of war, banknotes were torn and worn, often rejected in stores. Getting money from your own account can be exploitative: withdrawal through informal currency exchanges outside of standard banking processes can cost up to 50% of the commission.

This contradicts the spirit of Gaza, known for its generosity, neighbors always take care of each other, and as long as many of us remember, here, if others have food to share, no one goes hungry.

This spirit has not disappeared. People still share what they have hardly. However, the scale of deprivation is getting worse, so that even the most generous hands are often empty. The family went to bed hungry and woke up.

Especially one day, I kept working and exhausted. When I arrived at the stairs of the apartment, my legs barely hugged me. My blood sugar collapsed. When I arrived at the bedroom, I collapsed. I was taken to the nearest GP where I was sent to IV [intravenous fluids] Stabilize me.

The next morning, I came back. It’s not because I recovered, but because I feel I can’t afford it. There are conducted and transcribed interviews to support students and the information they need to send. The urgency of witness exceeds the necessity of rest.

It has nothing to do with the self. It’s about refusing to disappear. About the slow erasure caused by the war of resistance and famine. About sticking to our thoughts and work continues, even if it must be done in the ruins. In Gaza, becoming an academic today is refusing to simplify it to statistics.

Sometimes, it continues to feel impossible. The body just emits it. Reading makes me dim. Concentration slipped. Teaching becomes a battle to remain coherent.

In addition to physical damage, there is another kind of erosion – identity. As scholars, we intend to cultivate emancipation and emancipation of the mind among our students. But when our daily reality is hunger, sadness and displacement, we start to question whether we are still performing this role.

What does it mean to be a scholar when the conditions for thinking, teaching and creation are deprived? What does academic freedom mean when intellectual, political and teaching freedoms are constrained by siege? What does it mean to guide young people to critically ask when we ourselves are fighting to keep them upright? These problems are wandering, not abstract concerns, but tensions in life. However, we continue. Because stopping will abandon one of the last residues of our agency.

I often find myself caught between two difficult choices in the classroom: either avoid a discussion crisis and worry that my students will re-publish it; or face to face to open up space for collective reflection. Both paths are full of dilemma, but driven by the same hope – not only to use education to inform, but to emancipate students from trusting their voices is still important.

Work continues. Research phone. Project inspection. Webinar. Recorded lectures. Training courses, although they often have to stop. This is our reality. Nevertheless, we emerge: taking courses, writing suggestions, giving speeches, joining conferences, publishing. Not because we are strong or brave, but because we believe in the transformative power of education. And because stopping will be silence.

But the most basic facts are still hard to say loudly: We are hungry. Not by chance, but by design. When does naming become a taboo? For several days, split lentils have been my only meal. Finding flour is a treasure hunt.

Baking on an open fire is exhausted, physically and emotionally when we manage to collect ingredients. We use broken furniture to burn wood to make bread. Used notebooks and waste paper are turned into fuel; otherwise, we have to buy wood to get the job done. It’s not just hunger. It’s about being forced to fight for survival in silence.

Lighting the fire is a daunting challenge. The game runs out. A lighter is almost irreplaceable – it can be very expensive when available.

Those who can still refille it with a small amount of gas carefully. In many cases, a family or neighbor shares a flame that transfers it from the family to the family, which is another quiet act of unity and lasting spirit.

So, we continue to record. Not out of heroism, but to stay present. Because behind every report, every footnote, every lecture is a deeper fact: knowledge is still being generated in Gaza. Even now. Especially now.

What does solidarity mean when some of us have to think, teach and work while starving? What does inclusion mean when food, water and safety determine who can participate?

This is not a charity appeal. It is a call to face an uncomfortable fact: Unity is meaningless if one does not name and challenge the system that people strive to survive under siege, occupation and intentional deprivation.

True solidarity means asking the tough questions: Who can speak? Who heard it? Who can continue to learn and imagine the future when the bomb falls and is hungry?

Solidarity means changing the way the world works with people in crisis: adapting to deadlines, giving up fees, opening up access to books and journals, and providing space for voice from Gaza and beyond – not as victims, but as equal partners. This means understanding, sadness, hunger and destruction of infrastructure is not a “disturbance” of work, but a condition of living currently.

Generating knowledge in the context of hunger is through painful thinking. Teaching students who don’t eat but still telling them that their voice is important. Adhere to Gaza’s still thinking, and still having doubts, will still arise.

This is an act of resistance in itself.