Living Hell For Palestinians

From Jagjit Singh, Los Altos, CA

Once again, the United States has tilted the balance of power in favor of Israel with massive arms sales and created a living hell for the indigenous Palestinians.

According to U.N. estimates, 1.5 million Palestinians have been displaced in Gaza — that’s 70% of Gaza’s population. Many Palestinians fear Israel will never allow them to return to their homes. This is massive ethnic cleansing. Older civilians and the sick will surely die, unable to protect themselves from the terror in the sky.

Oblivious to the suffering, Prime Minister Netanyahu and his far-right criminal apartheid government have refused a ceasefire or a pause in the fighting. Under intense political and economic pressures, Biden and Congress will surely agree to an increase in funding to satisfy Israel’s insatiable appetite for more weapons.

Israeli crimes occurred before October 7. These are the gates to a living nightmare, a nightmare where people have been suffocating under persistent bombardment, mourning their families, struggling for water, for food, for electricity, and fuel. On the other side of this gate is Gaza, already described as the world’s biggest open-air prison before October 7, under a 56-year occupation and a 16-year blockade by Israel. The oppressed Palestinians have been living under their Israeli prison guards since the founding of Israel.

The atrocities perpetrated by Palestinian armed groups on the 7th of October were heinous. They were war crimes, as is the continued holding of hostages. The collective punishment by Israel of Palestinian civilians is also a war crime, as is the unlawful forcible evacuation of civilians.

Israeli airstrikes have hit areas near Al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest hospital, and the roads leading to the hospital are severely damaged, condemning the patients and their caregivers to certain death.

The collective punishment of the people of Gaza, coupled with settler terrorism in the West Bank, will surely plant the seeds of hatred for decades to come and may lead to a much wider war.

(This submission is not edited.)