Image by Emad El Byed.
“One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.” –Omar El Akkad
When he posted on October 25, 2023, he also shared video of Gaza, in three weeks of bombardment the devastation was already unfathomable. He condemned what was happening but noted the absence of vocal opposition. Some 21 months later children in Gaza are starving to death, the war and restrictions on aid have had predictable consequences. Children die when they don’t have food and water. Yesterday, as I write (July 28th), the AP reportedon a 5-month-old girl who was 6.6 pounds when she was born but 4.4 when she died.
They describe a scene that is hard—impossible—to read:
“The baby was brought to the pediatric department of Nasser Hospital on Friday. She was already dead. A worker at the morgue carefully removed her Mickey Mouse-printed shirt, pulling it over her sunken, open eyes. He pulled up the hems of her pants to show her knobby knees. His thumb was wider than her ankle. He could count the bones of her chest.”
The Ministry of Health reports 59,219 Palestinian fatalities in Gaza, 17,921 being children. Forget that intentionally starving a civilian population is war crime—not a strategy—many of us (not just in the U.S. but around the world) are represented by officials who celebrate meeting with indicted war criminals like Benjamin Netanyahu (his arrest warrant was issued by the International Criminal Court on 21 November 2024). Forget that Trump wants to turn Gaza into a “Riviera of the Middle East” … just remember the children and the innocent families.
The concept of crimes against humanity has always been contentious to me. All wars are crimes against humanity, the loss of life and damage to the environment are always catastrophic. Unthinkably, there is a reluctance for people to call the genocide by name. When 8,000 civilians were killed by Bosnian Serb forces in Srebrenica in 1995 the massacre was considered a genocide. But the crime is not called out by name nor is it condemned for the disrespect of Palestinian life that it is.
Protest signs correctly observe things like: “Starvation is not self-defense.” This is step all of us can take. We can mobilize in opposition to atrocities around the world. Explaining in clear language that there is no justification for the crimes that are being committed can raise awareness and challenge fallacious narratives of righteousness or self-defense. There is noexcuse for denying food to civilians or dropping bombs on the apartments where they live.
The Geneva Convention (1949) states: “take all feasible precautions in the choice of means and methods of attack with a view to avoiding, and in any event to minimizing, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects.” Addressing malnutrition and starvation is a challenge given the extent of the problem, hundreds of millions in aid contracted by USAID was frozen, and current conditions where more than 900 have been killed at aid distribution sites. Accidental, avoidable, or intentional, the famine needs to end.
We can pressure our elected representatives to achieve objectives like stopping the supply chains and distribution of the tools of genocide, pressuring for the access of necessary humanitarian aid, and an immediate ceasefire. Jewish Voice for Peace correctly observes, “With every passing minute that the US refuses to call for a full and robust ceasefire, more Palestinians are being killed.”
Indeed, there are many profiteers enjoying business deals at the expense of human lives, but there are still lives to be saved if we can force an end to the campaign of genocide now. We have a moral obligation to save those we can, like Anne Frank (a teenager killed in genocide) reminds us: “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
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