“My family’s situation is very difficult, sister. I couldn’t afford food. Everything here is expensive.” These words were sent to me on March 15 by Ramez, a 17-year-old boy living in Gaza. “I don’t have anything to eat tomorrow. I don’t know what to do. Hunger has come back again.”

Three days later, just before suhoor, the last meal before the daily fast begins during the holy month of Ramadan, Israel unleashed a huge campaign of bombardment, killing more than 430 Palestinians, including more than 180 children.

“Only God knows what we are going through,” Ramez messaged me the next day. “We left without taking anything with us, and now we are on the street. The situation is extremely bad. Everything happened suddenly, and we didn’t expect it. A massacre occurred right in front of us, and they asked us to evacuate under the shelling.”

Last year, Ramez had reached out to me on Instagram, a platform that has become a lifeline for countless people in Gaza calling out to the world for help. I do not know Ramez’s family personally nor do I have any historical connection to Gaza. Yet, out of the millions of accounts on Instagram, his message found its way to mine.

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In the following months, his messages became a window into the daily suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza. The ceasefire offered a temporary respite from the bombing and allowed Ramez to return to his home. Then, on the second day of Ramadan, Israel cut off all aid, triggering starvation again. On the 18th day of the holy month, it renewed its mass slaughter.

As I break my fast, here in Berlin, I think of all the Palestinian families that have almost nothing on their iftar tables, who instead of the call to prayer, hear Israeli bombing.

This can’t be real life, can it? Humans, just a few thousand kilometres away, are literally starving and dying under bombs. And here I am in the heart of the Western world, which professes values of democracy and freedom and yet, directly contributes to the mass murder of the people of Gaza.

The taxes I pay as a German citizen go directly to a government that fully supports Israel in its genocidal war on the Palestinians. The thought of it makes me feel horrified.

Hunger and genocide in Gaza

Ramez has been writing sporadically. I have hesitated to ask him for more detail, unable to bear the suffering he and his family face daily.

I know there were days when he only ate a few falafel balls and some pita bread.

His dreams are to finish high school and to study accounting. Instead, day after day, he is forced to reach out to Instagram users, asking them to donate and share his fundraising link.

His father got injured before the war and now lives in constant pain, urgently needing a shoulder replacement. He has left Ramez responsible for the family.

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Ramez has two brothers, aged 15 and 14, and three sisters, aged 20, 12, and 8. His father used to work as a water and electrical mechanic, while his mother is a housewife.

“Destruction and hunger remain in Gaza,” Ramez posted a few weeks after the ceasefire was announced. His family’s situation was still dire. While they received some food donations from humanitarian organisations, it was not enough to meet their needs.

They had returned to their home in southern Gaza, in an area where Israeli bombardment had decimated civilian infrastructure and buildings alike.

Ramez had to travel long distances to reach a humanitarian distribution centre – often, the transportation costs were higher than the value of the aid he received.

Though commercial goods were available in the market, his family couldn’t always afford them. They have no source of income apart from the occasional donation they would receive from strangers on Instagram.

After Israel blocked all aid into Gaza, food prices skyrocketed. Humanitarian aid has dwindled, food charities and soup kitchens have closed for the lack of supplies. Ramez’s family hasn’t received any aid in weeks.

Now there is only canned food and some vegetables in the market, he told me. “I cannot provide anything. I need about $100 a day for food because of the high prices.”

On March 15, almost two weeks into Israel’s full blockade on Gaza, UNICEF reported that malnutrition rates of children under the age of 2 in northern Gaza have risen from 15.6 percent in January to 31 percent at present; 23 children had died of malnutrition and dehydration in the span of a few weeks.

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The rest of the Strip has also seen a sharp rise, with Catherine Russell, UNICEF executive director, noting that “the speed at which this catastrophic child malnutrition crisis in Gaza has unfolded is shocking.”

Experiencing malnutrition during childhood can have lifelong consequences, including a higher likelihood of developing noncommunicable diseases and reduced immune system functionality. Furthermore, malnutrition-induced developmental delays can lead to irreversible deficits in cognitive and motor abilities, an elevated risk of behavioural challenges, and substantially diminished educational outcomes.

In other words, Israel’s starving of children in Gaza right now is destroying the next generation.

Egging on war crimes

In November, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. It accused the two of – among other crimes – intentionally starving civilians in Gaza.

Western countries that claim to uphold international law have readily declared that they will violate it and host Netanyahu. Among them are Hungary, Italy, Poland, and Germany.

Friedrich Merz, who is set to become the next German chancellor, recently stated: “Under my leadership, the Israeli prime minister will be able to travel to Germany without any trouble. I’ll find ways to make that happen.”

These declarations have signalled that the West had no intention of holding Israeli leaders to account for their crimes. Unsurprisingly, after facing no consequences for his ICC arrest warrant, Netanyahu decided to not only renew but ramp up genocidal starvation and indiscriminate bombardment in Gaza.

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After Israel fully blocked aid to Gaza, Germany, France and the UK issued a joint statement saying “a halt on goods and supplies entering Gaza … would risk violating international humanitarian law.”

This response, which refuses to call a crime a crime – was utterly shameful. On March 17, when British Foreign Secretary David Lammy gathered the courage to point out the obvious – that Israel is indeed breaking international law with its blockade of aid to Gaza – he was rebuked by his own government.

If deliberately starving and bombing a civilian population is not breaking international law, then what is? Western governments’ attempt to downplay and conceal Israeli crimes before the public is clear evidence of their complicity in these same crimes.

Western governments are obliged under international law to take action to stop grave violations. They should be exerting diplomatic pressure on Israel, imposing arms embargoes, restricting trade and cooperation. But they are not.

Instead of pointing out Western governments’ complicity and failure to act and stop a genocide, Western mainstream media has also been ignoring Palestinian suffering or worse – misleading the public about it. Starvation in Gaza did not even make headlines after Israel blocked all aid. The shocking massacre on March 18 did, but it was all neatly packaged with Israel’s justification of it.

The Western media regularly ignores or downplays Israeli officials’ genocidal declarations. Just recently, on March 19, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz addressed the Palestinian people of Gaza, threatening that they will face “complete destruction and devastation” if they do not expel Hamas and return the Israeli captives. This threat of genocide was reported as a “warning” and it evoked no reaction from Israel’s Western allies, except a weak condemnation from Lammy.

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Watching this show of empty talk, complicity, betrayal and gaslighting for 17 months now has been exhausting. It is a destructive narcissistic show of manipulation and display of power designed to wear down those of us who resist the normalisation of genocide – to break us.

But I’ve reached a point where I refuse to feel powerless and exhausted any more in the face of this overwhelming injustice.

Ramadan is a time when the strength of faith is supposed to be renewed. It is a time of sacrifice but also a time of joy, of community and personal growth. I won’t allow Israel and its allies to sabotage my belief in justice. The people in Gaza have taught us how to hold on to faith and stand steadfast – no matter what.

I will continue to hold onto the conviction that our voices and actions, no matter how small, can contribute to change. We must not stop raising awareness and pressuring our governments to take action. Our strength lies in standing together and reminding each other to continue believing, to continue fighting for justice.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.