By Bryan Bowman and Greg Williams for Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL)
The Biden administration is moving forward with a new shipment of 1,700 500-pound bombs to Israel, reversing its vow to suspend weapons transfers if Israel moved forward with its assault on Rafah.
The move sends a dangerous message of impunity as Israel continues its relentless war on Gaza and rejects U.S. proposals for a permanent ceasefire. It also further deepens U.S. complicity in harming Palestinian civilians. The new weapons shipment came just one day after U.S.-supplied bombs killed at least 27 people in an Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians.
Meanwhile, at least 33 children have recently died of malnutrition as famine spreads through Gaza. As The Lancet, a British medical journal, warned in a new study this week, these “indirect deaths” caused by malnutrition and disease are having a far more devastating toll than even the war itself. While at least 37,000 Palestinians have been killed directly in the violence, The Lancet estimates that the actual death toll is likely to exceed 186,000 people.
As experts have long made clear, this unprecedented humanitarian suffering cannot be seriously addressed until the fighting and bombing permanently stops. This is further underscored by the failure of the U.S. humanitarian pier, which was shut down this week after three months of operational problems and did little to help those in need.
As long as the United States continues to provide the military and political support that’s enabling and emboldening Israel to continue this war, more civilians will be killed by U.S. bombs. More families will starve. The risk of escalating regional war will grow. And the United States’ global standing will continue to be further diminished.
But we must not give way to despair. Particularly as Gaza fades from the headlines, our voices are critically needed to push our leaders to stand up for peace and to finally take the actions needed to secure a ceasefire and save lives.
