‘Too hungry to think, too weak to sit upright. Concentration slips away’

JVL Introduction

A haunting evocation of the reality of Gaza today through one academic’s account of his current life: still surviving, still working somehow, and above all, still resisting – a triumph against all the odds.

It is in the face of stories like this that our government’s complicity and abject failure to act will one day be so harshly judged.

Ahmed Kamal Junina  writes:

“There are days when continuing feels impossible. The body simply gives out. Reading leaves me light-headed. Concentration slips away. Teaching becomes a battle to remain coherent.”

And yet he persists, affirming

“To generate knowledge in the context of hunger is to think through pain. To teach students who have not eaten and still tell them their voices matter. To insist, against all odds, that Gaza still thinks, still questions, still creates.”

RK

This article was originally published by the Guardian on Tue 19 Aug 2025. Read the original here.