Months into Trump taking office, the level of violence and devastation that the U.S. has allowed Israel to unleash in Palestine is indescribable. For nearly 3 months, Israel has enforced a total siege of Gaza, refusing any humanitarian aid to be allowed in, imposing a situation of mass starvation and death.
Nearly all two million people still alive in Gaza right now — including thousands of babies — are in danger of starving to death. On top of the tens of thousands of Palestinians that have been killed by Israeli bombs, over 57 children or elderly people have already died of starvation. Thousands have been forced to receive emergency medical care because of starvation. The actual death toll is much higher than what’s been reported since many bodies have not been found under all of the rubble.
While Israel has imposed mass starvation on Gaza with U.S. support, the Israeli military is decimating Gaza through repeated airstrikes and an ongoing ground invasion. Each day, dozens of Palestinians are killed with bombs supplied by the U.S. military. In these bombings, no target is off-limits as hospitals, schools, and refugee camps are repeatedly destroyed. Since October 7, 2023, it’s estimated that Israel’s military has destroyed approximately 70% of all buildings in Gaza, including over 90% of residential buildings. At the same time, Israel has expanded its assault into the West Bank, with regular attacks aimed at expelling Palestinians, while supporting the further seizure of Palestinian territory by Israeli settlers.
This is not Israel’s war against Hamas, as the media and politicians like to call it. This is Israel’s blatant and relentless policy of genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. In fact, there is little actual fighting happening day to day, just brutal levels of destruction and killing carried out by the Israeli military. Journalists in Israel have reported that many military units in Gaza actually spend their time systematically blowing up and bulldozing empty buildings. The point of this is not to defeat Hamas, as Israel claims, but to destroy the ability for Palestinians to live in Gaza.
In the last few weeks, the U.S. and Israel have taken their savagery to a new a level by weaponizing starvation in their war on Palestinians. The U.S. government and Israel have created a fake foundation called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which is run by some ex-CIA members and former military personnel from the U.S. and Israel. The organization claims to be a humanitarian aid organization to assist with the distribution of food at new sites in the south of Gaza. But in reality, this is not an aid organization.
This is a military organization that is using starvation to lure Palestinians into concentration camp-like zones with the promise of food, only to capture or kill them. Already dozens of Palestinians have been killed or shot at these sites. Palestinians are forced to crowd into small areas surrounded by barbed wire fences and sniper towers, while barely any food has been distributed. Israel, supported by the U.S., is clearly using this organization as cover to more easily round up starving Palestinians and either kill them or expel them from Gaza.
Over the past several months, Israel has escalated its assault into one of the most savage humanitarian crises in modern history. Every barbaric action that Israel takes is done with a full green light from the United States. From Biden to Trump, Democrats to Republicans, they have all unflinchingly supported this brutality and continue to support Israel’s slaughter. Yes, as Israel carries out the undeniable murder of civilians and imposes mass starvation, some politicians in the U.S. and around the world have paid lip service to this, and have called for a so-called ceasefire. But these are just words. Military aid to Israel has continued this whole time. And every time there has been a so-called ceasefire, Israel has broken it, only to escalate their assault on Palestinians.
But in the face of this horrifying brutality, we cannot fall into despair. The Trump administration, by criminalizing protest against this genocide, thinks it can frighten people into submission while they continue to openly support Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians. The Trump administration has skyrocketed the military budget, while it slashes social services, guts funding for medical and scientific research, and transfers trillions of dollars to billionaires in tax breaks. These are the priorities of this brutal system that defends the interests of the wealthy at all costs, and relies upon genocide and mass starvation to prop up Israel and maintain U.S. interests in the Middle East.
We cannot relinquish our humanity in the face of what is clearly an inhuman system. We must continue to speak out wherever we are, and do everything we can to oppose this genocide and fight for a world free from this brutal system of occupation, exploitation and oppression.
