Genocide is being committed in Gaza: deliberate, effective, ruthless, evil intentional killing of humans of all ages and identities whose only crime is to be Palestinian. The entire population is the target, the casualties are not collateral damage, but successful targets. Israeli soldiers are dropping the bombs but we are complicit, this is “our” genocide. 

The public is finally waking up to this horrific tragedy, but this issue still lies within the spectrum of ambivalence to bipartisan support, which mean we are getting further, not closer, to a resolution. So, even though the true face of this horror is clear to me, I understand that it might not be clear to you, so I am attempting in this writing to explain why Gaza matters, and why it should matter to you too.

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Unimaginable Violence– Gaza’s citizens are being bombed on a daily basis- violently murdered and rendered into pieces. With bombs dropped at an unparalleled pace, in one of the most densely populated areas on earth, with direct intention of causing maximum harm. There is no pretense of targeting Hamas, the civilians are the point, the children are the targets. Sources say that in the first six days after October 7, 2023, Israel dropped approximately 6,000 bombs on Gaza, nearly the same number as were dropped by the US in Afghanistan in all of 2019, the peak of the US war there. In the first year after October 7, 2023, Israel dropped more bombs on the tiny Gaza strip than were dropped in all of World War II in Dresden, Hamburg, London combined. Drones murder survivors of bombings by shooting those who try to attend to the injured and deceased. They drive bullet after bullet into the heads of children. They smite men trying to bring morsels of food back to their starving families. Soldiers and mercenaries conduct daily massacres of those seeking food from the utterly dystopian depraved “Aid” centres, where “warning shots” are fired into the flesh of unarmed malnourished near ghosts who risk all for a few calories of nutritionally sparse rations. Fishermen are murdered for trying to catch food. A child is smited for daring to sit on the sea wall and look out into the world beyond. Journalists, bloggers, poets, content creators are bombed, along with their families, for daring to reveal what they have witnessed. These are the daily ceaseless cruelties of the boundless violence of this siege.

An entire society is being dismantled. Remember the image of the soldiers standing atop a massive pile of buffalo carcasses? As much as you may wince, you intellectually understand the strategy, the diabolical checkmate that the rotting food source represented. The destruction of all forms of infrastructure, water sources, medical care, housing, education, religious sanctuary, agriculture, and any sort of food source is the Israeli strategy, meticulously executed. In the absence of any medical treatment, thousands die from treatable injuries. Doctors perform amputations, c-section, and other procedures without anesthetic. Can you even begin to imagine? I truly cannot. I try to and I cannot. My brain does not go there, but this is real. This is real.

Forced Starvation. Starvation is murder. Starvation is torture. Right now, every single one of what once was two million Palestinians living in Gaza is being subjected to torture by virtue of the fact that they are being subjected to man-made famine. Babies, toddlers, children, teens, young men and women, old men and women, pregnant women, fetuses, all are starving, many have already perished. Parents are forced to watch their children die first. But. The food is there. It lies packaged in idled vehicles hovering at the border. The humanitarian workers are there. Those trained in the distribution of aid, real aid, are ready to serve, but are barred entrance. They and the organizations they represent are rightly afraid that they too will be martyred if they dare attempt to render aid. It is so important to emphasize the intentionality of this. 

The Israeli propaganda says that Hamas is stealing aid, which is absolutely meritless and is nothing more than a line to buy time.  If they were truly concerned with the consequences of food being diverted, they would allow more food, not less. Why can’t visiting doctors bring in any extra rations? Why can’t the Freedom Flotilla bring in baby formula? Why was Israel limiting the calories entering Gaza well before October 7?. Remember the buffalo and you have your answer.

The Intent. Each of these deadly sins described above are terrible of their own accord, but it is so important to underscore the intentionality underlying them. This is not famine borne of flood or drought. This is not collateral damage resulting from the targeting of an evil militant. This is not depravity in isolation with no witnesses. This is genocide before our eyes. This is us, as a collective, as a county, as a globe, adding our weight to drive the knee into the neck of an nation as it flutters and flails for breath. Each second we are silent is a second too long for another innocent life.

Our complicity. There are many tragedies around the world, and many people suffering on a daily basis, but the crucial difference is that the US is actively underwriting this massive crime against humanity. Without consistent US funding, Israel would not be able to impose such total control over Gaza, they would not act with impunity in the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iran. US funding is directly paying for these actions, and is reinforcing to the rest of the world that they may not oppose Israel’s actions without risking retaliation from the United States. Our country has spent at least 22.76 billion in military “aid” since October 7, 2023. Understand, therefore, that this is our war. There is no pretense of international law or human rights, our continuous financial support also confirms to Israel that our support is truly unconditional. 

Like many Americans, first exposure to the concept of genocide came from a steady diet of post-war freedom-fighter grade-school novels that taught me of the Holocaust and the glorious liberators of my countrymen. Even when I gained a more nuanced understanding of US and World History, I still not expect that an equally reprehensible evil might be repeated in my lifetime, and I naively thought that, if it did, my country would be on the right side of it.

There is so much more to this story that I am not equipped to relay, but there is just one more tragedy I have to name, which is the shame of having done not nearly enough when so much more courage, clarity, and action was needed. We get to live, but we have to live with ourselves. That is why we have to write, and speak, and donate, and make phone calls, and vote, not because we are under the impression that change will be easy or will come soon enough for those whose lives are on the line daily, but because our own humanity requires it.