Efforts to deliver food aid to Palestinians should not be met with abuse, international law needs to be upheld
The NFU supports attempts to break Israel’s siege of Palestine, food cannot be used as a weapon of war
Food continues to be used as a weapon against the people of Palestine, as farms and seed banks are destroyed and food aid is denied. As part of the National Farmers Union’s ongoing Palestine Solidarity work, the NFU signed on to support the Global Sumud Flotilla – a civil-society effort to deliver aid to Palestinians under siege from Israeli occupation forces. This endorsement signalled political support for breaking the siege, demonstrating that solidarity is structured alignment, not a rhetorical gesture.
As a farming organization whose members dedicate their lives to feeding communities, we condemn the blockade by the state of Israel and its use of starvation as a weapon against Palestinians. These actions are morally abhorrent and antithetical to our work as farmers, and furthermore prohibited under international law. We’ve previously called on the Canadian government to uphold their obligations to do everything in their power to stop the siege and ongoing genocide in Gaza.
On April 29-30 Israel illegally intercepted 22 flotilla ships in international waters, detaining 175 crew members; on May 18-19 Israel again forcibly boarded 45 flotilla ships and arrested 430 volunteers. The crew members were attacked for attempting to deliver life-saving aid to Palestinians. Twelve of the flotilla crew were Canadians.
The flotilla volunteers who were captured were subjected to violence, torture, and humiliation under the direct supervision of Israeli Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Israeli Transportation Minister Miri Regev.
This unlawful brutality is an example of the ongoing settler and occupying state violence taking place in the region that Palestinians experience every day. We see the continued violation of civil and human rights to assemble, to speak freely, to live without fear of violence, to have access to food, water and medical aid.
As of May 24th, Israel had released and deported all of the hostages taken from the Global Sumud flotilla after international pressure. Although they are out of the hands of the Israeli occupation forces, the genocide of Palestinians continues.
“We cannot rely on a couple hundred brave souls from the international community to stop this violence,” says Hannah Dwyer, NFU Board Member for British Columbia.“All of us must play our part in order to ensure that business as usual becomes impossible for Israel. We can’t all board sailboats headed for Gaza, but we all have opportunities to change our habits and the habits of people around us, and even the behaviour of the organizations that we are part of, to isolate Israel and refuse to normalize its actions, even if it means foregoing pistachios or clementines at the grocery store, switching or cancelling streaming services, or changing our email providers.”
The NFU continues to support work on the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement following the passage of our resolution supporting BDS at our 2025 National Convention. NFU members who want to contribute to our work in divesting the NFU from weapons manufacturing and companies implicated in Israeli apartheid should contact hannay@nfu.ca for more information.
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For more information, please contact:
- Hannah Dwyer, NFU Board Member, ipccoordinator@nfu.ca
- James Hannay, Policy Analyst, hannay@nfu.ca
