Dear Senator and Staff--
I write to advocate for starving people in Gaza. Yesterday, on-the-ground reporters for the New York Times told of doctors and nurses there charged with treating malnourished infants and children. These medics are having trouble, says the report, because they themselves are fainting from hunger and thirst. Gaza is starving. Israel's continued stranglehold on aid is unconscionable. The US should withdraw support and press Israel to allow food and other aid in.
In both the Biden and Trump administrations, the US has poured arms and money into Israel, especially after the vicious October 7 attacks by Hamas. Israel had the right to defend itself. But its actions since then have been disproportionate and ruinous. It has leveled Gaza. It's destroyed infrastructure. It's forced the relocation of millions of people. It's killed nearly 60,000 people, mostly women and children. It replaced UN-run food distribution with the US-Israel "Gaza Humanitarian Foundation," a group so badly conceived and inadequate that its own executive director resigned.
That Mr. Netanyahu claims "no starvation" in Gaza underlines how untrustworthy his government has become on this matter. Under him, Israeli solders have been ordered to fire on civilians. Aid workers have been shot by Israeli forces. Mr. Netanyahu seems intent on waging an out-of-control, no-end-in-sight campaign against not just Hamas but the Gazan people as a whole. President Trump seems willing to assist. It must stop.
The least the US can do is stop enabling Israel's de facto use of collective punishment as a weapon of war. We have supported Israel more than any other country on earth has. But we did not sign up to assist Israel with ethnic cleansing or mass starvation. It's past time that the well-being of Gazan civilians take priority over Mr. Netanyahu's politicking. Food aid must be allowed into Gaza--at once.
I urge you to do all in your power to stop the US from assisting Israel in perpetuating this humanitarian crime. I urge you to advocate shifting our support to coalitional, international, and effective aid for Gazans.
Thank you.
