DEARBORN — Community leaders held a press conference on Wednesday demanding urgent humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza — a starving population.

At the Henry Ford Centennial Library, local leaders expressed their dissent — and pleas to the federal government to help — over the worsening degrees of starvation the Palestinian people are currently facing as food and aid are blocked from entering Gaza.

Some of the speakers included State Rep. Alabas Farhat (D-Dearborn); Osama Siblani, publisher and founder of The Arab American News; Imad Hamad, executive director of the American Human Rights Council (AHRC); Jad Salamey, immigration and civil rights attorney for the Council on American-Islamic Relations Michigan Chapter (CAIR-MI); Amer Zahr, Dearborn School Board trustee and president of New Generation of Palestine; Dr. Nidal Jboor, co-founder of Doctors Against Genocide; Imam Mustapha Elturk, founding member of the American Human Rights Council and president of the Islamic Organization of North America; Abdallah Sheik, president of the American Arab and Muslim Political Action Committee (AMPAC) and Zuheir Abdel-Hak.

The chief of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in a virtual press conference from Geneva that this starvation is man-made due to a blockage on aid into region.

“I don’t know what you would call it other than mass starvation, and it’s man-made, and that’s very clear,” Ghebreyesus said. “This is because of [the] blockade.”

More than 100 International aid organizations and human rights groups have signed a statement calling on governments to step in and help the now dire situation in Gaza.

Part of the statement reads:

“As the Israeli government’s siege starves the people of Gaza, aid workers are now joining the same food lines, risking being shot just to feed their families. With supplies now totally depleted, humanitarian organizations are witnessing their own colleagues and partners waste away before their eyes.

“Just outside Gaza, in warehouses – and even within Gaza itself – tons of food, clean water, medical supplies, shelter items and fuel sit untouched with humanitarian organizations blocked from accessing or delivering them. The Government of Israel’s restrictions, delays and fragmentation under its total siege have created chaos, starvation and death. An aid worker providing psychosocial support spoke of the devastating impact on children: ‘Children tell their parents they want to go to heaven, because at least heaven has food.’

“Doctors report record rates of acute malnutrition, especially among children and older people. Illnesses like acute watery diarrhea are spreading, markets are empty, waste is piling up and adults are collapsing on the streets from hunger and dehydration. Distributions in Gaza average just 28 trucks a day, far from enough for over two million people, many of whom have gone weeks without assistance.”

Photos: AAN TV

American Human Rights Council Executive Director Imad Hamad stated that “silence is no longer an acceptable option in light of developments in the occupied territories. This is no longer about politics—it’s about saving lives and preventing further deaths.”

He emphasized that the time has come to call on elected officials at the local, state and federal levels to take urgent action to ensure that humanitarian aid reaches the residents of Gaza without delay.

“We’re not asking them to be anti-Israel. We’re simply asking them to be human, to act with conscience — not as politicians — and to help end the worsening famine and Israeli policies that have led to the deaths of 21 children in recent weeks.”

He described what is happening in the Gaza Strip as “a new Holocaust,” adding, “We will do whatever is necessary and right to break the siege and end the tragedy there.”

“The genocide in Gaza not only requires the full condemnation of everybody in power, everybody in a elected office, everybody with a moral compass, but it requires their action,” Farhat said at the press conference in Dearborn. “And it’s a shame that in the country that was the beacon on the hill for the world, we remain silent as young children are being murdered through starvation.”

The Arab American News Publisher Osama Siblani condemned what he called the “tyranny of Israeli brutality” in the Middle East.

“We wake up every day to watch on television and social media killings and mass bombings in Palestine, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon,” he said. “We are living a never-ending nightmare—despite being more than 7,000 miles away from that region.”

Siblani questioned the indifference and neutrality of the U.S. administration amid the bloody events, asking, “What are our officials in Washington doing? Have they lost their humanity? And where is President Trump — who once called himself the peacemaker — amid what’s happening in Gaza in full view of the world?”

Siblani denounced the Israeli attacks targeting children seeking food for survival.

“Every day we see reports of starving people being killed at humanitarian aid distribution centers, while our country and our government remain deafeningly silent,” he said.

He added that the U.S. administration is not merely complicit with the Israelis, but is “leading the humanitarian catastrophe itself.”

He noted that some of Arab and Muslim voters in the Detroit area supported President Trump in the last presidential election because of his promises to end wars and bring peace to the world.

“Where is the peace President Trump promised us?” Siblani asked. “All we see is death, destruction and mass starvation. Enough is enough.”

Siblani pointed to the upcoming midterm elections in 2026 and the 2028 presidential election, warning, “We have a date with the next elections.”

He signaled that Arab and Muslim voters will hold accountable those officials who remain complicit and silent as atrocities and genocide continue in the Gaza Strip.

“What’s happening in Gaza is not a crisis, it’s a genocide and it demands immediate action from all of us,” Salamey said. “First, we are horrified by the ongoing atrocities in Gaza where starvation is weaponized, where men, women and children are killed while seeking food, and where humanitarian aid is systematically blocked.”

Nidal Jboor, co-chair of the organization Doctors Against Genocide, relayed warnings from medical teams in the Gaza Strip about the worsening health crisis caused by malnutrition, coupled with deteriorating healthcare conditions — threatening the lives of “tens of thousands” in the coming days and weeks. He described the situation in the besieged enclave as “an American death web funded by our taxpayers’ money.”

Jboor said the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza could have been stopped two years ago with a single phone call, similar to what President Reagan did in 1982 to halt the Israeli assault on Beirut. “But it continues — with the funding and protection of our own government,” he said, stressing that President Trump has the power to end the war immediately “if he chooses to.”

“The president must act now,” Jboor added. “With just one phone call, he could prevent mass starvation — and then Israel and Hamas could sit down, negotiate and find a solution to this conflict.”

Imam Elturk pointed out that more than 20,000 Palestinians have been killed since Trump returned to the White House, accusing him of having “mortgaged himself and his administration to Netanyahu’s agenda.” He condemned the Republican president’s repeated denial of reports and statistics emerging from the occupied territories about the death toll and victims of Israeli violations.

Elturk described what is happening in Gaza as more than just “a heartbreaking tragedy.”

“What we are witnessing is a moral collapse of the global conscience,” he said. “As believers, we are commanded to stand with the oppressed — not just with our prayers, but with our voices and our actions. Silence is complicity… We must act now to end the suffering of the Palestinian people.”

In the 2024 presidential election, many voters in Dearborn voted for Trump after his promise for peace and to end the war in Gaza. Now, these leaders are demanding his promises are honored and their voices are heard as conditions in the Palestinian enclave worsen.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, the total number of deaths in Gaza due to famine and malnutrition is 115.