The Killing Fields of Gaza

The Israeli government piles war crimes on top of war crimes with the blessing and support of our government.

A new Amnesty report last week found that Israel continues to use starvation as a weapon against the people of Gaza as part of their genocidal campaign:

Evidence gathered by Amnesty International demonstrates how over a month since the introduction of its militarized aid distribution system, Israel has continued to use starvation of civilians as a weapon of war against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip and to deliberately impose conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction as part of its ongoing genocide.

The Israeli government is still deliberately starving the entire population of Gaza. The small trickle of aid that it lets in cannot begin to provide for their basic needs and it was never meant to. When people come to get the few crumbs that they are allowed to have, they run the risk of being injured or killed in repeated massacres. The Israeli government piles war crimes on top of war crimes with the blessing and support of our government.

The “aid” system has been a horror show since it began. Hundreds of starving Palestinians have been gunned down as they have approached these “aid” centers. According to Haaretz’s report last month, Israeli forces have been deliberately shooting civilians:

"It's a killing field," one soldier said. "Where I was stationed, between one and five people were killed every day. They're treated like a hostile force – no crowd-control measures, no tear gas – just live fire with everything imaginable: heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars. Then, once the center opens, the shooting stops, and they know they can approach. Our form of communication is gunfire."

As the Amnesty report put it, “Israeli authorities have turned aid-seeking into a booby trap for desperate starved Palestinians.” This is why Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has condemned the “aid” system as “slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid.” MSF has called for this system to be shut down and for the siege of Gaza to be fully lifted.

MSF’s emergency coordinator in Gaza, Aitor Zabalagogeazkoa, described the predicament facing starving Palestinians:

“If people arrive early and approach the checkpoints, they get shot. If they arrive on time, but there is an overflow and they jump over the mounds and the wires, they get shot,” says Zabalgogeazkoa. “If they arrive late, they shouldn't be there because it is an ‘evacuated zone’, they get shot.”

This is the inevitable result of letting Israel weaponize aid to control, humiliate, and starve the people of Gaza. The Israeli government has set up this despicable “aid” system to buy themselves some more time to continue waging their war. The “aid” system is just another weapon in that war. The U.S. supports and enables all of this.

“Aid must not be controlled by a warring party to further its military objectives,” the MSF report said. The people of Gaza need a major humanitarian relief effort run by credible and independent organizations under U.N. supervision. The longer that this murderous “aid” system is allowed to operate, the more innocent people will be starved and slaughtered while the world looks on.