PALESTINIAN rights campaigners have written to Welsh MPs urging them to take immediate action as starvation takes hold in Gaza.

“The whole of Gaza is now starving,” warned Rhondda Cynon Taff Palestine Solidarity Campaign in a letter to Pontypridd MP Alex Davies-Jones, Rhondda and Ogmore MP Chris Bryant and Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare MP Gerald Jones.

The campaigners highlighted “hugely distressing images coming out of Gaza, of emaciated babies and elderly people dying of starvation.”

One elderly man was seen dying at a food distribution point while a volunteer placed food into his container, the letter said.

“As activists and allies of the Palestinian people, we must tell you our hearts are shattered with grief, we shed endless tears of intense distress and we feel so helpless as Israel persists with its military onslaught,” the group wrote.

“It is made all the worse when we see an Israeli government spokesman blaming the United Nations for hunger in Gaza.”

The campaigners posed the same question Palestinian ambassador Riyad Mansour asked at a meeting of the UN security council: “What did you do during this genocide? Not what you said or what you considered. What did you actually do?

“We know it is awful. We know it is distressing. We know you will be upset and want it all to end. Please don’t tell us this. Please do tell us: what did you do?

“We will be awaiting your answer. And as we wait, babies, the elderly and others will be dying.

“They will also be asking: what did you do as a person of influence as Israel deliberately starved them to death?”

The letter calls on the MPs to demand stronger sanctions against Israel, including trade restrictions and a total halt to arms exports.