By choice, Jesse Gillis has only eaten one small meal a day since May 22. Working as a forester, the reduced nutritional intake has taken a toll on his body.

“I am quite tired from not eating. I’m always hungry,” said Gillis, who feels himself losing weight. “I’m satiated for maybe an hour or two after the meal, and then I’m back to hungry.”

He is among 11 New Hampshire residents participating in a 40-day nation-wide hunger strike, organized by Veterans for Peace and Friends of Sabeel North America. The New Hampshire fasters have united as the New Hampshire Coalition for a Just Peace in the Middle East.

“More needs to be done, especially with what’s going on right now in Gaza,” Gillis said. “I thought the least I could do is join the fast in solidarity and contribute a little bit of funds for the people that are trying to get there.”

A veteran of the Air National Guard, Gillis described feeling “disillusioned” with the U.S. government’s response to the Israel-Hamas conflict. The Pembroke resident joined Veterans for Peace last year. He is among five veterans participating in the #Fast4Gaza.

They want to see human suffering, especially among Palestinian citizens, minimized.

“It’s totally unacceptable what they’ve been allowing to happen and actively participating in for the past 20 months now,” he said. “I’m limiting my intake, so I feel somewhat hungry – but what they’ve been going through is not comparable. Between being bombed and starved and the lack of clean water and medical assistance, and the housing is gone, the water distribution, whether or not you can have clean water, I can’t imagine any of that.”

Those participating in the faste are aiming to consume a maximum of 250 calories a day, explained Megan Chapman, who helped coordinate the state-wide effort. That number falls around the estimated amount of nutrition available the average Palestinian in Gaza as a result of the blockade on aid. 

“I condemn the attacks on Israelis – and Americans in Israel – that happened on October 7. And I also condemn the attacks on so many tens of thousands of Gazans who’ve lost their lives,” she said. “So few of those people have any known relationship to Hamas. These are ordinary civilians living their lives, and killing one person doesn’t undo the killing of another, and the disproportionality of the attacks is so extreme.”

Chapman, who lives in Albany, N.H. and works for the World Fellowship Center, said participants want to see humanitarian aid sent to Gaza through the United Nations and the end of U.S. arms shipments to Israel “until there can be a permanent pathway to peace,” starting with a ceasefire.

“I don’t believe that the current U.S. government position reflects the majority of the country’s wishes in terms of what should happen,” she said. “I don’t think that most Americans want women, children, elderly people, to be starved to death and then bombed when they go to seek food. I don’t think that’s something Americans want, and I don’t think it’s something that people in New Hampshire want, and so we’re just trying to escalate and show that we are willing to take the struggle into our own bodies to try to pass a message.”

Contoocook-based poet and retired educator LR Berger described her fast as a means of showing solidarity.

“All day, my meager sense of hunger keeps me nearer in spirit to those who, moment to moment, are experiencing these ongoing atrocities in Gaza,” she said.

She fasts one day a week as part of a chain of people. Both in New Hampshire and around the country, the act of people coming together feels like a step in the right direction.

“There’s a quality of solidarity between the fasters that I find very empowering,” she said. “While there’s a lot of reasons for pessimism and despair, I find it energizing. And in that way, there’s more energy for future actions together.”

The strike has garnered participation from around 700 people across the country, according to Chapman.

Gillis works in forestry and hikes an average of five miles a day, in addition to carrying heavy loads and operating machinery. To carry out his responsibilities safely, he eats a small dinner each night – slightly more than the 250 calories per day. He hopes the large-scale participation in the fast will empower more people to reach out to their legislators and push for change.

“It’s not going to bring about the end of what’s going on over there, but it at least puts the attention on these people and the cause that may influence the legislature to step up, as they’ve been, it seems, introducing new bills to get immediate aid into Gaza and getting permanent ceasefire,” he said.

Chapman has said the conflict has forced her to look inward while questioniong the government’s actions.

“I think that taking a step like this, internalizing it into my body, it feels like it’s a way of living the reality that that the structure of our life in the United States is trying to keep us apart from while we’re also fueling and funneling support to it,” Chapman said.