The violence in Gaza is horrific. In just over four months, the destruction of Gaza has reached a scale of devastation among the worst since World War II. It has continued to worsen everyday.
The Israeli state is knowingly targeting children, civilians, journalists, and medical and rescue workers. Israel is collectively punishing an entire population and seems to have every intention to continue to forcibly remove or exterminate the people of Gaza.
Over 85 percent of the entire population of Gaza is displaced: over 1.9 million people. Many of them have evacuated multiple times, only to be bombed on evacuation routes, or in areas that Israel once declared “safe.”
Now, 1.4 million people are sheltering in the southern-most region, on the border with Egypt. This area, called Rafah, is less than half the size of Washington D.C. There is no infrastructure for people to live: no showers, toilets, drinking water, or housing. Diseases are spreading rapidly.
Famine is reaching catastrophic levels. Four out of five people starving in the world are in Gaza. The dire conditions today are due to a blockade of food and resources entering Gaza. The siege itself is not new: Israel has kept Gaza “on a diet” for 17 years, and now has decided to starve them.
As Israeli forces continue to move south, where will the Palestinians go? If the border to Egypt is opened, they fear they will never be able to return to Gaza. In the current conditions, many thousands of people will die. With a further offensive, they will die from American-made, Israeli deployed bombs that will be dropped on civilians, overwhelmingly children. As some refugees in Rafah have said, their only option is to continue to be surrounded by death.
The United States government has supported Israel’s actions of forced displacement and genocide of Palestinians for 75 years. The United States has sent billions of dollars in arms, bombs, and other military support to Israel to conduct this genocide. It has vetoed any action in the United Nations to pass a ceasefire resolution and is likely to do so again.
Many people around the world, including in the U.S., have turned out by the hundreds of thousands to protest the attacks on Palestinians. Nonetheless, the politicians have continued to use our tax money to support this genocide. Biden even called the military activity in Rafah “our operation” before correcting himself.
The U.S. government is supporting this genocide out of the interests of its ruling class. Their interests are intertwined with Israel as its strategic location in the Middle East allows the U.S. to maintain control of the oil-rich region. Oil is interwoven in every aspect of our economy, and the oil companies, bankers, and their politicians have every interest in maintaining these economic ties.
These are the same oil companies and banks responsible for global heating and high gas prices. These are the same corporate owners and bankers who charge us ridiculous prices and high interest rates, who drive up the cost of mortgages and rents, healthcare, and the overall cost to live.
The ruling class waging a war on Palestinians is waging a war on us as well. We have the same interests as the people of Palestine: to end the rule of a tiny elite waging war on all of our lives.
