8 Ways You Can Help End the Gaza Siege—Today

How to fund relief, call Congress & Parliament, pressure MKs, join targeted boycotts, and nurture cross-faith peacework.

The Israeli government’s blockade on aid, food and water in Gaza is the latest development in a string of heinous war crimes that has sparked non-violent protests from around the world. It was as if bombing civilian homes, schools and hospitals weren’t enough, we had to come to the cusp of watching 2M people starve to death in real-time in order for the governments of the world to do anything about it…

But what can be done as an individual?

In this article I want to share the simple actionable steps that anyone can take to respond to the situation in Gaza. If the everyone watching these atrocities takes action we can save lives through aid, ceasefire and the release of hostages.

We promised our neighbors after the holocaust that we would never again let the cattle cars of innocent people roll by the country side into the gas chambers. We promised that we would never again sit back and watch the plumes of black smoke fill the sky with ambivalence because it wasn’t happening to us…

So the question beckons: What are we doing about it right now?

But first a quick primer: What’s been holding me back from taking action?

Why Doom-Scrolling Fries the Brain—And How to Rewire It for Action

Endlessly swiping through graphic Gaza footage wires the brain for a loop of anticipation without relief. Each new clip delivers a quick spike of dopamine—the same reward chemical that fuels gambling—while hinting that the very next swipe might finally make sense of the chaos. The reward circuit lights up, keeping your thumb moving almost automatically.

Meanwhile, the amygdala flags every explosion and grieving parent as a potential threat, flooding the body with noradrenaline and cortisol. Add mirror-neuron empathy—your brain partially “feels” the other person’s pain—and the nervous system slips toward compassion fatigue: a flat, exhausted state in which motivation dries up even as outrage remains. Under sustained stress, the prefrontal cortex loses working-memory bandwidth, so decision-making (“What concrete step can I take?”) feels foggy or futile.

The net effect is a paradox of high arousal, low agency: we ache to act, yet the neurochemical cocktail convinces us nothing will help. Recognizing this pattern is the first intervention. The practices and action steps that follow are designed to break the loop—shifting the brain from reactive doom-scrolling to purposeful engagement that actually moves the needle.

Fast neuroscience-informed resets (use these before you tackle the action list)

1. Pattern-interrupt the loop — Physically set your phone down, stand up, and name five objects you can see. Thirty seconds of sensory grounding nudges activity from the amygdala back to the prefrontal cortex.

2. 90-second vagal reset — Inhale through the nose for 4, hold 4, exhale 8. Longer exhales activate the vagus nerve, lowering heart rate and cortisol so planning circuits come back online.

3. Shrink the goal to one bite — Research on learned helplessness shows that any controllable action (even a 30-second email to a senator) restores dopamine in the goal-seeking pathway and primes you for the next step.

4. Pair outrage with connection — Social buffering (a call with a friend, a vigil, a faith circle) elevates oxytocin, which both dampens stress hormones and sustains prosocial motivation far better than solo scrolling.

5. Enforce a sunset scroll-curfew — New sleep-lab data finds even one hour of negative-news scrolling before bed boosts next-day anxiety by 59%.

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Action Steps

1. Learn the facts & break the silence

Start with reliable frontline sources
Follow Palestinian journalists such as Motaz Azaiza, Bisan Owda, Ahmed Shibab-Eldin and Mohammed El Kurd for close-up on the ground coverage and organizations like Middle East Eye.

Call the situation what it is (genocide)
According to the UN’s 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG), genocide is any of five listed acts “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”:

1. killing members of the group;

2. causing serious bodily or mental harm;

3. deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction;

4. imposing measures intended to prevent births;

5. forcibly transferring children to another group.

There is ample evidence to suggest that Israel is in fact intentionally committing genocide:

1. Gaza Ministry of Health reports 53,655 Palestinians killed and 121,950 injured between 7 Oct 2023 – 21 May 2025.

2. Over 100,000 wounded in the war; WHO verifies 668 attacks on healthcare, with hospitals bombed or besieged.

3. Israel’s ordered a “complete siege”—“no electricity, no food, no fuel” (Defence Min. Yoav Gallant, 9 Oct 2023); IPC now warns that 470, 000 people face Famine (IPC Phase 5) and the entire population is in Crisis or worse.

4. Netanyahu invoked the biblical command to wipe out Amalek on 28 Oct 2023. A civil-society database documents 500+ public statements by senior Israeli officials and officers calling for “erasing” or “flattening” Gaza. UN Special Rapporteurs (5 Mar 2024) said there are “credible and reasonable grounds to believe” that Israel is committing genocide.

2. Share, cite, repeat

When you post, add links instead of screenshots so every click drives traffic to primary data. Quote casualty figures with dates and sources to fight misinformation.

• UN OCHA – Humanitarian Situation Update #290 (Gaza Strip)

• UN OCHA – Interactive “Reported-Impact” Dashboard

• UNRWA Situation Reports (#170–171)

• ACLED’s Gaza Monitor

3. Put money where it saves lives

Give or fundraise for frontline relief.

1. Combatants for Peace is a Jewish and Palestinian coalition of Israeli peace organizations running a fundraiser for the Jumpstarting Hope in Gaza initiative, led by Damour for Community Development and the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, in close cooperation with Palestinian, Israeli, and international partners.

2. Despite Israel’s criticisms, UNRWA is still the backbone of food, water and trauma care in Gaza; donations literally keep bakeries running today.

3. Donate to at least one medical NGO such as Medical Aid for Palestinians or Doctors Without Borders, both providing life-saving critical aid on the ground.

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4. Apply direct political pressure

United States

As of late May 2025, nearly every Democrat has just signed onto a resolution demanding the “urgent delivery” of humanitarian aid to Gaza. Parallel measures from Senators Kaine, Welch, Van Hollen and others call for a permanent cease-fire and the full restoration of UNRWA funding. In short, a handful of undecided senators will decide whether humanitarian aid gains teeth and whether weapons shipments are even debated—your calls and emails this week can genuinely shift the vote count.

✍️ Contact your senators and house representatives TODAY.
For senators: to this website, pick your state and get the contact information for your elected representatives. For house representatives, go here. They all have websites with contact forms.

Tip: When contacting elected representatives, use ChatGPT o3 to research their position on the war in Gaza and write an effective message accordingly.

United Kingdom

Since Labour took office in January, Foreign Secretary David Lammy has twice summoned Israel’s ambassador, paused all free-trade negotiations and last week ordered officials to review the remaining 320 UK arms-export licenses after suspending 30 of them in 2024. In Parliament, cross-party MPs have tabled Early-Day Motion 63689 demanding a total arms embargo and full transparency over F-35 parts still reaching Israel, while the Business & Trade Committee has called three ministers to testify on the export review.

✍️ Write your MP
Cite EDM 63689 and ask them to sign it and back a total embargo of all arms sales to Israel. Demand for Israel to immediately allow all aid to be released into the Gaza strip without deterrence. Use ‘Write to Them” as a free service to send the messages to your elected officials directly.

🇬🇧 Petition the Foreign Office
Demand the pause of trade with Israel become a total cancellation until a cease-fire and aid flow are secured. Email fcdo.correspondence@fcdo.gov.uk, with “Urgent: Gaza humanitarian access & arms licences” in the subject line. State what you want: e.g. “Suspend all extant arms‐export licences to Israel and publish a timetable for restoring full UNRWA funding.” Add your postcode! (they log UK correspondents by constituency).

❌ Sign Oxfam’s “Stop Arming Israel” Petition
“According to our laws, the UK Government must stop issuing licences for arms sales if there is a clear risk they might be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law”

Israel

As of today 70 % of Israelis already tell pollsters they’d trade a permanent cease-fire for the hostages’ release—the public is moving; organised pressure can move the Knesset next.

📞 Light up your MK’s phone & inbox
Use the Knesset directory to grab email/WhatsApp numbers. Focus on coalition swing votes: Likud moderates, Shas’s Yoav Ben-Tzur, National-Unity hold-outs, and the Jewish Power MKs now wavering after hostage-family pressure. Ask for three things: (1) back the cross-party “Humanitarian Corridor Bill” that mandates daily truck quotas; (2) demand the cabinet comply with the ICJ provisional measures; (3) restore UNRWA operations.

✍️ Join or fund the High Court petitions
Donate or volunteer legal skills with Gisha, HaMoked, PHR-Israel and Adalah, which are running the HCJ 2280/24 petition to force the government to reopen crossings and allow fuel and flour. Sign public letters that these groups append as “friends of the court.”

4. Show up in public

1. Join sustained weekly protests. Movements led by Jewish Voice for Peace, Palestinian Solidarity Campaign (U.K.), and CAIR are keeping Gaza on the news agenda and protecting student activists. Even 30-minute vigils amplify the pressure on media and officials

2. Bring creative tactics. Flash-mob kaddish, die-ins at weapons-maker offices, and art builds draw coverage that sterile marches do not.

5. Use economic leverage (BDS & beyond)

1. Targeted boycotts. The BDS National Committee prioritizes HP, Siemens, and Caterpillar for maximum strategic impact. Add Carrefour, and McDonald’s which are now “organic targets.” Download their guide here

2. Divest & reinvest. Ask universities, churches, and pension funds to dump shares in arms contractors or settlement-linked banks and to reinvest in community-owned renewables or affordable housing. US defense contractors include: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, L3Harris Technologies, Oshkosh Defense, AeroVironment, Caterpillar, Textron.

6. Create inter-faith and intercultural spaces

1. Host listening circles & shared meals. Partner with a mosque, church, and synagogue; open with personal stories rather than polemics. Groups like T’ruah (U.S.) and Churches for Middle East Peace (U.S./U.K.) provide facilitation toolkits.

2. Invite Israeli & Palestinian peace workers. Amplify Israeli human-rights NGOs that are already calling for a cease-fire; their voices puncture the “inevitable conflict” narrative.

7. Leverage media and culture

1. Flood editors & producers. Use Guardian and Reuters coverage of US and U.K. policy shifts and arms-export loopholes as pegs for letters-to-the-editor or call-ins. Every letter and phone call makes a difference.

2. Discover and share Palestinian art, film, and scholarship.
   Stream Palestinian-made documentaries and subscribe to Watermelon Pictures

   1. Where The Olive Trees Weep

   2. Israel & Gaza: Into the Abyss

   3. A Year of War: Israelis and Palestinians

3. Read and book Palestinian authors for podcasts

   1. Mahmoud Darwish

   2. Sahar Khalifeh

   3. Ghassan Kanafani

   4. Susan Abulhawa

8. Sustain the work in yourself

Take a breather from the news. Knock off your shoes and put your feet in the soil. Connect with your breath and express gratitude for the life and safety you enjoy.

Set aside time to meditate or pray for those who are suffering. Place a hand on your heart and feel it beat. Light a candle and lose your thoughts in a soft, gentle gaze.

Observe Shabbat, celebrate Eid, and chant psalms of peace. We are all human. We are all just looking for a place to belong.

Grieve. Mourn and pray together to grieve the lives lost in this genocide. Host a vigil, invoking rituals from your own traditions. Honoring the memories of those killed, you can read out their names, share their stories, or display their photos with candles and tea lights.

Conclusion

Regardless of our political, religious or spiritual affiliation—we should all be able to stand for peace. By getting clear on the action steps, we can respond to the atrocities we witness and help move the needle towards the provision of aid, ceasefire and release of hostages.

Hamas’ attack was horrendous, inhumane and cannot be justified. The preceding Israeli occupation, resulting war and ongoing genocide is a continuation of a tragic history of bloodshed between the decedents of Abraham. We should be able to advocate for a solution to this conflict, without minimizing the grievances of either side. We should be able to advocate for peace and dignity for everyone while holding compassion for all victims of oppression and war.

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Credits

1. Photo by حسن on Unsplash

2. Photo by Combatants for Peace