Like so many others, I’ve taken every action I can think of to demand an end to the genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank. Initially, I sent numerous emails, letters, lists of names of slaughtered children and articles from the alternative press to our “representatives” in Congress. After several months with little response, I gave up on that strategy.

I took part in demonstrations and protests, spoke at city council meetings in support of a ceasefire and divestment from Israel and ended my membership with the Belfast Food Co-op when management refused to stop carrying Israeli products. I wrote letters to the editor and opinion pieces. I’ve stood at post-office square in Belfast on Sundays for 18 months with other activists committed to stopping the genocide.

Yet still it continues.

I’ve been stunned by the number of people coming out into the streets to protest against the destructiveness of the Trump administration, wondering why they have not been there to help the Palestinians. Perhaps one reason is that most rely on mainstream media coverage as their sole source of news, limiting their knowledge and perspective. For surely, if people knew the truth of what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank, they would be horrified, outraged and demand an end to the United States aiding and abetting the genocide.

With this in mind, I offer the following.

On Oct. 1, 2024, Francesca Albanese, United Nations expert on Palestine, included the statement that follows in her report on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories: “Since its establishment, Israel has treated the occupied people as a hated encumbrance and threat to be eradicated, subjecting millions of Palestinians, for generations, to everyday indignities, mass killing, mass incarceration, forced displacement, racial segregation and apartheid. Advancing its goal of ‘Greater Israel’ threatens to erase the indigenous Palestinian population.”

Statements from Israeli officials are telling. The following quote is from former Defense Minister Yoav Galant: “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip … We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”

From Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu: “There is no problem in bombing Hamas’ food reserves … They need to starve.”

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, commenting on overcrowding in Israel’s prisons: “The death penalty for terrorists is the right solution to the incarceration problem.”

And finally, Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich: “There is no such thing as Palestinians because there is no such thing as a Palestinian people.”

I could continue, for there is no end to the hate-filled rhetoric fueling the unspeakable actions of the last 18 months.

The situation in Gaza is unthinkable, unimaginable for most of us. Palestinians are being exterminated. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, one child is killed every 40 minutes in Gaza, with more than 16,000 dead since Oct. 7, including 908 infants who did not survive their first year.

More than 60,000 children are suffering from emaciation and severe malnutrition, a number expected to rise to 200,000 within two weeks if Israel continues to block food from entering Gaza. What if these were our children?

History will not look kindly on what we have allowed to happen. The U.S. is Israel’s partner in genocide. We are as responsible as Israel. It may be the Israeli Defense Forces killing and torturing, but we supply the weapons and money. Israel could not continue the slaughter, the starvation, if we stopped supporting it, if we demanded that the crossings be opened and humanitarian aid delivered immediately, that the killing be stopped.

It is as simple as that. What will it take for citizens in this country to be out in the streets to stop the unforgivable genocide of Palestinians?