Genocide in Gaza an American tragedy
The continuing tragedy of Gaza has been pushed from the headlines by all of the executive orders, DOGE activities and judicial countermeasures since Jan. 20.
A guest essay by Sean Carroll in the May 6 edition of The New York Times, “This is the Moment of Moral Reckoning in Gaza,” brought it back into focus for me.
The events of the October 2023 massacre were horrendous, but so were the conditions in the Gaza Strip during the Great Return March of 2018-19, when Israeli soldiers fired into restrained crowds of peaceful Palestinian refugees, aiming mostly for lower backs and legs. Doctors Without Borders reported the majority of 3,117 patients the organization treated had been shot in the legs.
Even in the most peaceful times, the Gaza Strip was often compared to an open-air concentration camp. And it’s gotten immeasurably worse.
Carroll points out, “A full-blown humanitarian emergency in Gaza is no longer looming. It is here, and it is catastrophic.”
Israel broke the ceasefire in Gaza on March 18 and has not allowed any humanitarian aid in since. Gazans are now surviving on a meal every two to three days.
Carroll runs the American Near East Refugee Aid nonprofit, and his clinics are now finding ketones in one-third of the urine samples tested — an indicator of starvation.
Israel seems to be using starvation as a tactic to pressure Hamas to release the remaining hostages, estimated at about two-dozen. This is in violation of international law.
Many Palestinians believe starvation is part of a genocidal plan to eliminate them from Gaza altogether.
On March 15, unarmed emergency aid workers were killed by Israeli soldiers. Some were executed outright, and both their bodies and their ambulances were buried to cover up the crime.
Meanwhile, the bombing continues. And Israel is now calling up thousands of troops to displace Palestinians from northern Gaza and establish Israeli occupation there.
The US is by far the biggest supplier of arms to Israel. Since Trump’s inauguration, more than $20 billion in military aid has been authorized.
That makes us complicit in this genocide.
Opposition to what is going on in Gaza is not an expression of antisemitism. It is an expression of humanity. It simply reflects a drop of empathy for the Palestinians.
We must demand our government stop supporting Netanyahu!
Les Howsden is a retired physician living in Amity. He is a frequent contributor of letters to the editor.
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