B1 · Intermediate
11 min
foodgeopoliticshumanitarianhistoryculture
El Barco del Hambre: Gaza, el Bloqueo y la Comida como Arma de Guerra
The Ship of Hunger: Gaza, the Blockade, and Food as a Weapon of War
Fletcher breaks down this story in English. Octavio reacts and expands in Spanish. Follow along with the live transcript, tap any word for its translation. Intermediate level — perfect for intermediate learners expanding their range.
So, twenty boats left Marseille this week.
Not fishing boats, not a navy.
Just twenty boats, carrying people who wanted to sail toward one of the most blockaded places on earth.
Bueno, mira, es una flotilla.
Well, look, it's a flotilla.
Una flotilla es un grupo de barcos pequeños.
A flotilla is a group of small boats.
Estos barcos salieron de Marsella, en el sur de Francia, para intentar llegar a Gaza con ayuda humanitaria.
These boats left Marseille, in the south of France, to try to reach Gaza with humanitarian aid.
And when Octavio says humanitarian aid, he means food, medicine, basic supplies.
The things that are not getting in right now because of the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.
La verdad es que Gaza tiene un bloqueo muy severo desde hace muchos años.
The truth is that Gaza has had a very severe blockade for many years.
Israel controla lo que entra y lo que sale.
Israel controls what goes in and what comes out.
Pero ahora, en 2026, la situación es mucho peor.
But now, in 2026, the situation is much worse.
Right.
And here's what I want to get into today, because this is really where it becomes a food story.
What does a blockade actually do to what people eat?
Like, concretely, what does it mean?
A ver, significa que la comida no entra.
Well, it means food doesn't get in.
O entra muy poca.
Or very little does.
Las personas no tienen suficiente para comer todos los días.
People don't have enough to eat every day.
Los niños son los que sufren más.
Children are the ones who suffer most.
The UN World Food Programme put out numbers earlier this year saying that a significant portion of Gaza's population was in what they called catastrophic food insecurity.
That's the technical term.
It means people are starving.
Exacto.
Exactly.
Y la flotilla salió de Marsella porque muchas personas en Europa y en el mundo quieren hacer algo.
And the flotilla left from Marseille because many people in Europe and around the world want to do something.
No es una operación militar.
It's not a military operation.
Es una protesta con barcos.
It's a protest using boats.
Marseille is a fascinating choice, by the way.
I've been there a few times.
It's this old port city, very Mediterranean, very mixed.
People from Algeria, Tunisia, Lebanon.
The whole southern shore of that sea is represented in Marseille's streets and markets.
Sí, y Marsella tiene una comunidad árabe muy grande.
Yes, and Marseille has a very large Arab community.
Muchas personas allí tienen familia en países árabes.
Many people there have family in Arab countries.
Para ellos, este bloqueo es algo muy personal, no solo político.
For them, this blockade is something very personal, not just political.
Look, this isn't the first time someone has tried to sail to Gaza.
This has happened before, and it ended very badly.
We should talk about that.
Sí, en 2010 hubo una flotilla muy famosa.
Yes, in 2010 there was a very famous flotilla.
Se llamaba la Mavi Marmara.
It was called the Mavi Marmara.
Era un barco turco.
It was a Turkish ship.
El ejército israelí subió al barco y mató a diez personas.
The Israeli army boarded the ship and killed ten people.
The Mavi Marmara.
That was a massive international incident.
Turkey recalled its ambassador.
The UN investigated.
And it put the Gaza blockade on the front page of every newspaper in the world.
Bueno, pero el bloqueo continuó.
Well, but the blockade continued.
La flotilla fue un símbolo muy importante, pero no cambió la situación en Gaza.
The flotilla was a very important symbol, but it didn't change the situation in Gaza.
La comida siguió sin entrar de forma normal.
Food continued not entering normally.
The extraordinary thing is that using food as a weapon is actually ancient.
It's probably the oldest military strategy there is.
You don't have to fight your enemy if you can starve them first.
Es verdad.
That's true.
En la historia, muchas ciudades cayeron no por las armas, sino por el hambre.
In history, many cities fell not because of weapons, but because of hunger.
Los romanos usaron este método.
The Romans used this method.
Los medievales también.
Medieval armies too.
Es una táctica muy vieja.
It's a very old tactic.
I covered the siege of Sarajevo in the nineties, briefly.
And the thing that stays with you is not the shelling.
It's the bread lines.
It's people trading cigarettes for a handful of flour.
Food becomes the center of everything.
Exacto.
Exactly.
Y en Sarajevo, el mundo envió aviones con comida.
And in Sarajevo, the world sent planes with food.
Hubo un puente aéreo.
There was an airlift.
Pero en Gaza, no existe eso ahora.
But in Gaza, that doesn't exist right now.
La situación es diferente.
The situation is different.
So I want to ask you something, Octavio, because you know international law better than I do.
Is this legal?
Is a blockade that restricts food legal under international humanitarian law?
Es que la respuesta es complicada.
The thing is, the answer is complicated.
El derecho internacional dice que una potencia ocupante tiene que permitir la entrada de comida y medicina.
International law says that an occupying power must allow food and medicine to enter.
Pero Israel dice que no es una potencia ocupante en Gaza.
But Israel says it is not an occupying power in Gaza.
And that legal argument, whether Israel is or isn't an occupying power, has been going on for decades.
Courts disagree, governments disagree.
But in the meantime, real people are hungry.
La verdad es que el Tribunal Internacional de Justicia dijo este año que la situación en Gaza es muy grave.
The truth is that the International Court of Justice said this year that the situation in Gaza is very serious.
Ordenó medidas para proteger a los civiles y para permitir la entrada de ayuda humanitaria.
It ordered measures to protect civilians and to allow humanitarian aid to enter.
I mean, there's a gap between what a court orders and what actually happens.
That gap is enormous.
And in that gap, people are not eating.
Mira, lo que me parece importante es que las personas en la flotilla lo saben.
Look, what seems important to me is that the people on the flotilla know this.
Saben que probablemente no van a llegar a Gaza.
They know they probably won't reach Gaza.
Pero van de todas formas.
But they go anyway.
Here's what gets me about that.
There's a tradition of this in the Mediterranean.
The sea has always been a place where desperate ideas get tried.
The Greek independence fighters in the 1820s.
The refugee boats of the 2010s.
Now this.
Sí, el Mediterráneo es un mar con mucha historia.
Yes, the Mediterranean is a sea with a lot of history.
Es un mar de comercio, de comida, de culturas diferentes.
It's a sea of trade, of food, of different cultures.
Pero también es un mar de conflictos y de tragedias.
But it's also a sea of conflicts and tragedies.
And Marseille, of all cities.
You know the bouillabaisse?
The famous fish stew from Marseille?
It's this extraordinary dish with half a dozen different fish, saffron, garlic, rouille.
It comes from a port city that has been receiving fish and spices from across the whole Mediterranean for two thousand years.
Bueno, la bouillabaisse es un plato muy interesante.
Well, bouillabaisse is a very interesting dish.
Es una comida de pescadores pobres.
It's a poor fisherman's food.
Usaban los pescados que nadie quería.
They used the fish nobody wanted.
Con ajo, con tomate, con azafrán.
With garlic, with tomato, with saffron.
La miseria se convirtió en cocina.
Misery became cuisine.
The misery became cuisine.
That's beautiful, actually.
And there's something in that idea that connects to this story.
People in Gaza have a food culture too.
A real one.
Falafel, hummus, musakhan.
A cuisine that's thousands of years old.
Es que la comida palestina es muy rica.
Palestinian food is very rich.
El musakhan es un plato con pollo, cebollas y aceite de oliva.
Musakhan is a dish with chicken, onions, and olive oil.
Es muy típico.
It's very traditional.
El aceite de oliva en Palestina es muy importante, cultural e históricamente.
Olive oil in Palestine is very important, both culturally and historically.
The olive trees.
I've read about the olive trees.
Some of them in the West Bank are thousands of years old.
And they've been cut down, burned.
There's this dimension of food warfare that isn't just about blocking supply ships.
It's about destroying the agricultural identity of a place.
Sí.
Yes.
Un árbol de olivo viejo es un símbolo muy fuerte.
An old olive tree is a very powerful symbol.
Para las familias palestinas, un olivo es tierra, es historia, es familia.
For Palestinian families, an olive tree is land, it is history, it is family.
Cuando destruyes el árbol, destruyes mucho más que la fruta.
When you destroy the tree, you destroy much more than the fruit.
So let's talk about what this flotilla realistically achieves.
Because twenty small boats carrying supplies, they can't feed a population of over two million people.
The math doesn't work.
No, la verdad es que los barcos no pueden resolver el problema.
No, the truth is the boats can't solve the problem.
No tienen suficiente comida para dos millones de personas.
They don't have enough food for two million people.
Pero el objetivo no es solo llevar comida.
But the objective isn't only to bring food.
Es llamar la atención del mundo.
It's to call the attention of the world.
And that's where I keep going back and forth.
Because on one hand, I respect the people on those boats enormously.
On the other hand, I spent twenty-five years watching symbolic gestures absorb the energy that could have gone into actual political pressure.
Es que los dos son importantes, Fletcher.
Both are important, Fletcher.
El símbolo y la acción política.
The symbol and the political action.
La Mavi Marmara en 2010 fue un símbolo, pero también cambió la política de Turquía y la opinión internacional sobre el bloqueo.
The Mavi Marmara in 2010 was a symbol, but it also changed Turkey's politics and international opinion about the blockade.
No, you're absolutely right about that.
The Mavi Marmara shifted something.
It put faces on the story.
And that's what journalism does too, at its best.
You make people real.
Mira, lo que me parece más importante es esto: el mundo tiene reglas sobre la comida en tiempo de guerra.
Look, what seems most important to me is this: the world has rules about food in wartime.
Las reglas dicen que no puedes usar el hambre como arma.
The rules say you cannot use hunger as a weapon.
Pero las reglas no siempre funcionan.
But the rules don't always work.
The rules don't always work.
That's an understatement that covers a lot of history.
Stalin starved Ukraine.
Mao's policies starved tens of millions.
The Biafra blockade in the late sixties.
Every generation has its catastrophe.
La verdad es que la historia del hambre como arma es muy larga y muy triste.
The truth is that the history of hunger as a weapon is very long and very sad.
Y siempre son los civiles, los niños, los ancianos, los que sufren más.
And it's always the civilians, the children, the elderly, who suffer most.
No los soldados.
Not the soldiers.
So here's the question I want to leave people with.
Not about the politics, not about who is right or wrong.
Just this: when we talk about a flotilla, when we talk about a blockade, we're really talking about a fundamental question.
Is food a right?
A ver, la ONU dice que sí.
Well, the UN says yes.
El derecho a la alimentación es un derecho humano fundamental.
The right to food is a fundamental human right.
Está en la Declaración Universal de Derechos Humanos.
It's in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Pero en la práctica, muchos gobiernos no lo respetan.
But in practice, many governments don't respect it.
And twenty boats leaving Marseille, setting out into the Mediterranean toward a blockaded coast.
Whatever you think of the politics, there's something almost ancient about that image.
People sailing toward hunger, trying to answer it.
Bueno, para mí, la comida es siempre algo más que comida.
Well, for me, food is always something more than food.
Es cultura, es identidad, es dignidad.
It's culture, it's identity, it's dignity.
Cuando una persona no tiene comida, no pierde solo calorías.
When a person has no food, they don't lose only calories.
Pierde una parte de su humanidad.
They lose a part of their humanity.
Y eso es lo que debemos recordar.
And that is what we must remember.