On the night before February 29, thousands of starving Palestinians in northern Gaza camped out overnight along a coastal road leading into demolished Gaza City. A witness, Kamel Abu Nahel, said he and others were there in the middle of the night because word had spread there would be a delivery of food, and “We’ve been eating animal feed for two months.”
People were camped out because they were starving. In the first few days of March, at nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital, fifteen children died of starvation and dehydration. The hospital, crippled by Israeli assaults, could not save them.
But when food trucks finally arrived and people unloaded sacks of flour, the Israeli military fired into the crowd, murdering unarmed, starving, defenseless people on the spot. At last count, 115 people are confirmed dead from the massacre, more than 700 more injured.
Palestinians wait for humanitarian aid on a beachfront in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, February 25, 2024. Photo: AP
Imagine the terror: Living amidst near total devastation of your neighborhood, living on animal feed and bird seed, you've watched your children lose a dangerous amount of weight, not able to sleep due to hunger gnawing at your belly. You finally hear there may be a chance at getting a sack of flour. After hours of waiting in the cold, you move toward the trucks as they arrive, only to hear gunshots pierce the air and people around you dropping from injury or death, or running for their lives.
The Israeli military blamed the deaths on people pushing and shoving, and said that most of the people died in a stampede or were run over by trucks. But two hospitals where victims were taken said most of the dead or injured had gunshot wounds.1
VIDEO: Israeli massacre of Palestinians waiting for Gaza aid trucks | Al Jazeera Newsfeed Video: Al Jazeera Newsfeed
A doctor on the scene described dozens of dead and injured with gunshot wounds, including to the head, neck and groin, after Israeli forces opened fire. He saw sacks of flour soaked in blood. Kamel Abu Nahel, the man who had been living on animal feed for two months, said Israeli troops opened fire as people pulled boxes of flour and canned goods off aid trucks. And that after the shooting stopped, people went back to the trucks, and the soldiers opened fire again.
Israel Is Starving the Palestinian People in Gaza to Death, On Purpose
This massacre took place amidst the forced starvation of Palestinian people in Gaza by Israel. Before the reactionary attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7, around 500 aid trucks came into Gaza every day. Gaza is home to 2.4 million Palestinian people, tightly locked into an “open air prison,” with Israel controlling the water and electricity and preventing people from coming and going freely. In its genocidal slaughter of Gaza, 30,320 people have been killed. Farmlands have been bulldozed and Israel has destroyed most of the bakeries in Gaza that were a main source of food. In the last weeks, only about 100 aid trucks daily have made it into Gaza with very little of the food making it to northern Gaza.
Humanitarian aid groups have repeatedly made clear they have the food, the water, the medicine, the formula for babies, that will prevent starvation but Israel has decided not to let this in. And the rulers of Israel straight up admit they are doing this.
The impact has been one of the great crimes against humanity in modern history. Melanie Ward, the CEO of Medical Aid for Palestinians, said that the conditions for the people of Gaza have seen “the fastest decline in a population's nutrition status ever recorded. What that means is that children are being starved at the fastest rate the world has ever seen. We could finish this tomorrow, we could save them all but we're not being able to.”
"The fastest decline in a population’s nutrition status ever recorded"
Israel has sent a clear message: if we let aid in, you gather to receive it at the risk of death.
USA: All in on Israel’s Genocide
Israel's genocidal slaughter, terror, death and destruction of Palestinians would not be possible without the full backing of the U.S. providing military equipment, funding, intelligence, and political cover. The U.S. has vetoed three resolutions calling for a ceasefire at the United Nations which might have assisted in getting food and water to starving people. And they cut off funding to the main aid agency for Palestinians in response to unproven claims from Israel that 12 out of its more than 12,000 employees participated in Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel.
In the wake of this massacre, the U.S. has announced that it will start airdropping aid into northern Gaza to ensure that it makes it to the people who need it. But the sadistic truth is that they are airdropping just 38,000 meals into a population of more than two million people facing starvation! Meanwhile, Biden has continued the flow of money and military equipment for Israel as it continues its genocide. This includes thousands of tons of bombs, bullets, and rifles to kill and maim those same people they made a show of sending a tiny amount of food to.
An Utterly Illegitimate System
This needless starvation and slaughter is the product of a system of capitalism-imperialism. To understand why that's so, read or listen to this social media dispatch from the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian (see sidebar).
There is nothing more basic than the need to eat. And any system that through conscious policy forcibly starves more than two million people, and slaughters them when they gather for food—is a completely illegitimate system that needs to be overthrown at the soonest possible time.
Everyone with a heart for the people of the world needs to be part of mass protest to demand that the U.S.-backed Israeli genocidal slaughter of the Palestinian people MUST STOP NOW! Everyone agonized about why this is happening needs to look into the deeper causes driving this nightmare. Everyone who wants to see liberation for the Palestinian people, and the people of the world, needs to join the force for revolution to bring a radically different world into being.
REVOLUTION Number Seven
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Bob Avakian, “Why is the U.S. supporting Israel's genocide of Palestinians?”
This is Bob Avakian (BA), bringing out more of the truth about what is happening with Palestine: why the U.S. is supporting and aiding Israel’s genocidal slaughter of Palestinian people, how this shows once again the barbaric nature of this system of capitalism-imperialism, and the truth that only a real revolution can put an end to all these horrors constantly perpetrated by the rulers of this country and the system that they serve and enforce.
In the face of all the lies, it is crucial to keep coming back to this basic, essential reality: Here is the entire ruling class of the U.S., and all its major politicians, both Democrat and Republican, fully supporting an apartheid state, Israel, carrying out the genocidal slaughter of Palestinians in front of the whole world.
And for those of you who think that politicians just act in their own narrow personal interests, think deeper—think about this: Biden has not only been a long-time fanatical backer of Israel, with its terrible crimes against humanity, but now Biden is fully supporting the genocide being carried out by Israel, even though this is likely to cost Biden the votes of large numbers of people who are righteously outraged by this genocide, and this could end up costing Biden the election. (And don’t be fooled by Biden putting on the act of telling Israel to be more careful in killing civilians—Biden has continued to send military aid to Israel, and to provide it with “political and diplomatic cover,” as the bodies of Palestinian civilians massacred by Israel pile up in the tens of thousands.)
Why is Biden, and basically the entire government and ruling class of the U.S., supporting Israel in carrying out genocide against the Palestinian people, before the whole world? Here is the answer to that crucial question:
This is not because of “the power of the Jewish lobby”—or because of some ignorant, ridiculous and outrageous notion that “Jews are controlling everything.” It is because Israel plays a “special role” as a heavily armed bastion of support for U.S. imperialism in a strategically important part of the world (the “Middle East”). And Israel has been a key force in the commission of atrocities which have helped to maintain the oppressive rule of U.S. imperialism in many other parts of the world.
(That is from my statement Some Basic Truths About the U.S.-Supported Israeli War Against Palestine, which is posted at revcom.us.)
It’s the system! The system of capitalism-imperialism that Biden serves. The system he has to serve—the system that anybody and everybody has to serve if they want to hold office, and especially “high office,” like president, within this system. That is why Biden is doing what he’s doing—what all these politicians are doing—above and beyond their more narrow personal interests.
It’s the system! This system of capitalism-imperialism that embodies and enforces white supremacy, patriarchal male supremacy and other brutal oppression—this system resting on ruthless life-stealing exploitation of masses of people in this country and literally billions of people worldwide, including more than 150 million children—all enforced with massive violence and destruction, of people and the environment, posing a very real threat to the future and the existence of humanity.
This system that needs to be overthrown at the soonest possible time, through an actual revolution.
Next, I’m going to get directly into why this revolution is possible, in this time, and what we need to be doing, right now, so there will be a real possibility for this revolution to succeed.