Greta arrives as Gaza continues to burn
As soon as she crossed the doors of the international arrivals hall, the crowd erupted into a chant that seemed to carry her forward: Palestinian flags, “Free Palestine” banners, phones held high. Greta Thunberg walked with the short, heavy steps of someone still carrying the night on her back. “Let me be very clear: there is a genocide going on in front of our eyes,” she said before the cameras, facing the press at Athens’ Eleftherios Venizelos Airport. And she added —as if resetting the compass— that the focus should not be on those who sailed in the flotilla; the focus is Palestine.
She was met with a wave of applause and affection. “Solidarity is not a crime,” could be read and heard in Greek livestreams covering her arrival; behind that phrase, the scene became a collective embrace for someone who, only hours earlier, had been just another deported young woman. In her first public words after leaving Israel, Greta repeated what she had already said from within: “We are witnessing a genocide broadcast live,” and “our governments are not even doing the bare minimum.” She did not speak of herself; she insisted on the duty to act.
Reporters asked about the treatment she had received in custody. Exhausted, Greta chose not to dwell on the harm: she said she could “talk at length,” but “we are not the story; the story is Gaza.” That decentering —immediately picked up by the international press— turned her arrival into a moral summons.
Meanwhile, in Gaza…
In the last five days, the violence has not stopped. Between September 24 and October 1 —the week immediately preceding this day— the Gaza Ministry of Health reported 429 Palestinians killed and 1,556 injured; and in the past 48 hours (from Friday night to Sunday), at least 36 more people were killed by bombings and attacks, according to medical sources cited by Reuters. AP’s tally today raises the total number of counted fatalities since October 2023 to 67,160.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) described this past week as one of “air, land, and sea bombardments,” with strikes hitting residential buildings, markets, displacement tents, and people waiting for aid —alongside controlled detonations and fire on civilians collecting firewood. In a single span of days (September 26–30), OCHA listed, case by case, incidents with dozens of deaths: entire families in homes, a crowded market in Nuseirat, a displacement center, and people queuing for food.
Hunger continues to exact its toll: 455 deaths from malnutrition (151 children) since October 2023, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, with visible deterioration in recent weeks. OCHA and Al Jazeera have for months documented deaths by starvation and cases of people killed or injured while trying to access aid: 2,580 dead and over 18,930 injured since May among those seeking assistance, according to UN data consolidated as of October 1.
The flow of food remains far below what is needed. In September, “more than 6,500” trucks carrying food entered through all routes (humanitarian, bilateral, and private), compared to over 10,500 in February during the ceasefire. Community kitchens in northern Gaza fell from 29 active (155,000 daily meals) to only 8 (45,000) by September 30 —a 70% drop—; bread availability is now described as “very limited.”
The health crisis deepens: 54% of essential drugs and 66% of medical supplies are completely out of stock, with 45% of emergency materials unavailable; Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) announced the suspension of its activities in Gaza City due to intensified operations, and the ICRC relocated staff for the same reason. Only one UNRWA medical point remains open in the city, operating at just 5% of its August capacity (before the ground invasion).
In water and sanitation, collapse is nearly total: 15 liters per person per day —the humanitarian minimum— compared to 80–85 liters before 2023; 0% access to safe sanitation; 1.2 million people exposed to wastewater less than ten meters from their homes; 900,000 living amid uncollected trash. These are perfect conditions for disease outbreaks —and for what locals call “death without noise.”
But in Athens, the word restores the focus
As she finished her brief statement, Greta returned to the essential: “Israel is trying to eliminate an entire population”; “this is a genocide broadcast live”; “states have a legal obligation to act and to end their complicity, including by halting arms transfers.” She emphasized that “she is not a hero,” that the news is not about the deported, but about Gaza. And she closed with the sentence that gives this chronicle its title: “Solidarity is not a crime.”
Greta’s courage is not performative: she has landed to bring us back to earth. She asks for no pity; she passes the torch. She calls on us not to lower our arms, not to dehumanize ourselves when fatigue and habit threaten to make “normal” what is not: a population exhausted, hungry, thirsty, without medicine, under bombs, and with overflowing morgues. And to hold firm, without stammering, that standing up to another’s suffering is not a crime: it is an act of humanity.
