A Lancaster woman is eating just 300 calories a day to draw attention to the Middle East crisis as she calls for a face-to-face meeting with her MP.
Fariha Blockley, from Caton, said her decision to eat only one 300-calorie meal per day, for the past 18 days, is because "it is what the residents of Gaza have been slowly dying on since January".
Mrs Blockley, who describes herself as "a humanitarian and a pacifist", has called for an in-person meeting with Lizzi Collinge, MP for Morecambe and Lunesdale.
“All I want is for Lizzi Collinge, to look me in the eye, woman to woman, and tell me why we are not demanding the aid trucks are allowed into Gaza," she said.
She said she has lost half a stone since beginning her protest, and said she is being monitored by doctors.
“This is one of the few actions I can take, I am fully able to make this choice,” she said.
“I just want to speak to her. All I’ve heard are words. Words aren’t going to save lives.”
A spokesperson for Ms Collinge (below) said this week: "As is standard practice for all appointments, when Fariha made the request to meet, she was offered a virtual meeting or phone call with Lizzi at the earliest possible opportunity but this was declined.
"Lizzi is currently out of the country but continues to be concerned for Fariha’s welfare and her team remains in contact with her directly, as they have been for over two weeks."
Mrs Blockley said: “I am not a dangerous person. I am a pacifist and a humanitarian. She is my elected representative. There is a right for us to meet.
“This is a catastrophic situation and it’s having an impact on the emotional wellbeing of constituents here in Morecambe and Lunesdale.
“I have been to Palestine myself. I have friends who have been killed out there. I have a lot of friends who have family out there.”
Mrs Blockley said she’d recently returned from Egypt where thousands of people from all over the world gathered to try to walk to Rafah, the border with Gaza.
“There was aid there, sitting rotting at the border, and they wouldn’t let it in,” she said.
“We just wanted to peacefully draw attention to what was going on."
Mrs Blockley, 50, told Beyond Radio she is a longtime supporter of human rights who has raised money to send aid to refugee camps and helped to organise local events highlighting the ongoing crisis in Gaza.
She formerly worked as a probation officer, and also for a sustainable food partnership and a refugee support charity working with people coming into the UK, including from the Ukraine and Sudan.
Ms Collinge said, on July 30, that she was "horrified by the appalling, unrelenting scenes in Gaza including starvation, more killings, and the abject suffering of children and babies" and "I welcome the steps being taken by the government including the dropping of humanitarian aid into Gaza in partnership with Jordan, getting injured children out of Gaza and into British hospitals, and strongly pressing for UN (United Nations) deliveries of aid to resume".
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