Israeli government airstrikes massacred upwards of 212 Palestinians in Gaza, within 7 days, this included 61 children, 36 women and a further 1400 were injured. Yet, the US Biden administration feels that it’s a good idea to send 735 million dollars worth of precision guided missiles to Israel so that it can continue its latest massacre.

In just seven days, Israeli government airstrikes were able to obliterate entire neighborhoods in Gaza, with the specific intention of targeting civilian infrastructure, roads, medical clinics, water facilities, electrical facilities, media buildings and the list goes on and on. 

To give an example of one of Israel’s most blatant crimes so far, this Sunday morning Israeli warplanes completely wiped out one of the most thriving neighborhoods in Gaza. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, 30 people were murdered on al-Wehda street, in Gaza City’s al-Rimal area, known to be populated by Gaza’s middle and even upper class. Of those thirty confirmed to have been killed, 9 were women, 11 were children, and  one of Gaza’s most gifted neurologists who worked at al-Shifa Hospital. These were far from Hamas militants, yet even if they were, 6 month old Qusay al-Qolaq was sleeping in his bed when he was killed and therefore murdering him was still unjustified.

You can’t just kill people because they are a member of a group, this runs contrary to international law. But unfortunately, the rhetoric of the “evil Hamas terrorist” has been rammed so far down the Western public’s throats that it is now very difficult to argue with someone utterly convinced that this democratically-elected group is anything but akin to ISIS – which is ridiculous because they are not synonymous.

The Israeli government is using precision weapons in many of its strikes, and roughly 85% of those it has killed have not been members of Hamas or any other political Party’s armed wings. No evidence has even been presented that Israel killed a single Palestinian resistance fighter whilst they were in the act of firing at Israel, which would mean that until proven otherwise not a single one of their killings is justifiable.

Israel’s top Human Rights organisation B’Tselem has accused Israel of war crimes, stating the following just a few days ago:

“In Gaza, ever since Operation Guardian of the Walls began, Israel has bombed and shelled civilian population centers and residential buildings, including high-rises housing dozens of families. The UN estimates that more than 10,000 Palestinians have left their homes and sought shelter in 29 UNRWA schools. Israel has reportedly caused massive damage to businesses, electricity and water infrastructure, roads and farmland. Three hospitals have reportedly been damaged: the hospital in Beit Hanoun, the Indonesian Hospital and the Hala a-Shawa Medical Center (currently not operating).”

B’Tselem is not the only one to have weighed in on this either, Amnesty International has also called on there to be an investigation into the bombing of residential buildings in Gaza, in order to determine decisively whether it was a war crime.

Keep in mind as well that Israel’s government is currently under an International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation for war crimes committed in the occupied Palestinian territories. Even with such an accusation hanging over its head, it goes ahead and behaves like a mad dog blowing up everything and anything on-site in Gaza. 

Israel has also failed spectacularly to achieve any military gains during this latest “operation” and is now resolved to seemingly target as many civilians as possible. It’s strategy behind targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure is two fold: first they believe it will beat down the spirits of the people of Gaza; secondly, they can show their own people that they “eliminated x amount of terrorists” and “the terrorist infrastructure of Gaza”. Most of the Israeli population truly believes that its army is the most moral force on earth – even whilst it decapitates Palestinian babies with airstrikes – so questioning the word of their army is almost like questioning the word of God, and hence, they’ll buy it.

Joe Biden could have stopped Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu, not just by backing down at the UN Security council when it came to a vote on forcing a ceasefire, but before this all escalated in the first place. The age-old “Israel has the right to defend itself” trope is tired and obviously not rooted in reality when even international law alone is taken into consideration; it’s like saying “but that police officer had to shoot the kid in the back 20 times and scream racial slurs, he was defending himself”. The United States could instantly reign in Israel and force it to stop, and it could have also long ago forced a so-called two-State solution, yet they killed that opportunity too.

The sale of more precision weapons to Israel will result in one thing and one thing only, more dead Palestinians; but that’s not a surprise because Joe Biden also sells these weapons of death to Saudi Arabia. This entire ongoing offensive, the Palestinian people resorting to their only means necessary, and even Israel’s push to the extreme far-right, are all the doing of successive US administrations which have facilitated this direction, and therefore the blood is on their hands.