91��ɫ

by Charles Levkoe, Martha Stiegman, Sarah Rotz and Tamara Soma

For more than a year, the Israeli state has been engaged in a massive incursion into Gaza following the October 2023 Hamas attack against Israel.

In March 2024, , the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, announced: “There are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the crime of genocide…has been met.”

A core element  includes , a tactic that has  to exterminate, dispossess and control Indigenous populations.

We have come together as a group of critical food systems scholars to examine the parallels between the weaponization of food in Gaza and Canada to bring about the systematic destruction of Indigenous Peoples. But we’ve also observed that food has been a powerful tool of resistance and resurgence.

Food as a weapon

Throughout modern history, food has been deployed as a . The current crisis in Gaza has brought this into sharp focus as the Israeli state has engaged in the , with devastating consequences.

, has cut off access to essential agricultural areas and restricted fishing activities. .

This blockade, combined with , trees and infrastructure, has resulted in  and a  in the summer of 2024.

Canada’s use of food weaponization

Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the  to restrict Indigenous Peoples’ access to land, food and water.  like the Indian Act, the Homesteading Act and  confined Indigenous Peoples to reserves, prohibited hunting and fishing and forced reliance on .

This led to malnutrition and starvation, . The use of food as a weapon was part of a broader project to eliminate or otherwise undermine Indigenous identity and self-determination, a process that .

From ongoing  to environmental degradation , , ,  and , settler governments and industries continue to dispossess Indigenous Peoples from their lands and undermine their livelihood.

These practices have , as well as their food systems.

Israel targets food infrastructure

In the occupied Palestinian territories, Israeli control over land and resources reflects a similar colonial dynamic. Laws like the  facilitated the expropriation of Palestinian land.

Meanwhile, the , according to Human Rights Watch. Satellite imagery shows that  has been eliminated or damaged, and about .

Tanks and trucks have decimated orchards, field crops and .

An estimated  among the debris of destroyed buildings will result in asbestos-related diseases for generations to come. Under the , destruction of civilians’ means of survival and starvation as a tool of warfare is strictly prohibited.

Food as resistance

Food has also long been mobilized as a powerful tool of resistance. Among Palestinians, struggles for  in self-determination.

Palestinians continue to , grow olive trees despite  and maintain food practices that connect them to their lands and their cultural heritage.

Similarly, Indigenous nations and communities across Canada have used food as a form of resurgence. Alongside , efforts to revitalize Indigenous food systems — such as hunting, fishing, growing and gathering — are central to movements for Indigenous sovereignty.

Learning about and enacting  are important acts of resistance, as these practices sustain communities, strengthen connections to land and assert rights over the unceded territories Indigenous Peoples are fighting to reclaim. By reclaiming and rebuilding their land and food systems on their own terms, they continue to challenge colonial structures.

Food, colonialism and resistance

The destruction of food systems in Gaza and Canada is part of a larger effort of land dispossession and capitalist accumulation. By severing Indigenous Peoples’ connection to their food systems, settlers and colonial regimes have sought to control not only the land but also the people who depend on it.

Yet, through food sovereignty movements, these same populations are reclaiming their right to self-determination and building .

The struggle for food sovereignty is inseparable from broader struggles for land, justice and self-determination.

Connecting the dots between the Palestinian territories and Canada provides powerful examples of global colonial relations and struggles for justice and self-determination. It challenges us to critically examine the role of food in these struggles and demand government accountability.

We wish to acknowledge Mustafa Koç, Prof. Emeritus at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU), as a co-author and to thank Max Ajl, Yafa Al Masri and Justin Podur for contributions to this article originally published in . An extended version of this research article is published in the in December 2024.