1. United States
2. Ariz.
3. Letter

The rest of the international community has recognized that Gaza’s residents are being starved while humanitarian aid is deliberately withheld for political purposes. The U.S. stands as a culpable exception in refusing to call this horrifying situation what it is. The reasons for this are undoubtedly many, and ultimately, they won’t matter. We will have abdicated any moral authority by endorsing this well-documented war crime targeting children, women, and elderly people resulting in mass starvation and death after nearly two years of attacks on and displacements of civilian populations. Credible, organized, and efficacious aid organizations have been driven out of Gaza only to be replaced with a joint U.S. and Israeli organization that is so incompetent at providing aid that it opens for mere minutes a day for distribution and lethally shoots the intended recipients of that aid when starving civilians brave the disorganized crush of desperate people who try to secure food. Moreover, this disreputable new “aid organization” has none of the organizational systems in place to ensure that those who receive aid are known and tracked, as reputable aid organizations have traditionally done. Indeed, the simpler explanation for this new organization is that it is perpetuating the starvation and violence that is being inflicted on Gaza’s population. The United States must rejoin the international community in recognizing that there is no morality in starving people—-children, men, women, and elderly—-and that this cannot be a tool of war. Denying the humanity of Palestinians dehumanizes us. Israel and the United States must end this depravity now.