This letter is in response to a harmful and misconstrued take that what is happening in Gaza right now is not a genocide (“We cannot call it genocide in Gaza,” letter, Aug. 14).

First, I want to take a moment to define the term “genocide.” According to the U.N. definition, genocide means killing, causing serious harm and forcibly trying to eradicate a group of people based on ethnicity, nationality, race or religion. I urge the letter writer and others to open their eyes to what is happening in Gaza to people just because they are Palestinian and living in Palestine.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, 60,034 Palestinians have been murdered and 145,870 have been injured in Israel’s brutal attacks. Al Jazeera notes that out of this number, 18,000 children have died. It pains me to see the letter conflate Hamas with the entirety of the Palestinian people and justify how they are being killed and starved by Israel. The writer needs to open his eyes to the scale of violence being perpetrated by the IDF.

I also urge the writer to read Mohammed el-Kurd’s book, “Perfect Victims: and the Politics of Appeal,” Edward Said’s “The Question of Palestine” and Rashid Khalidi’s “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine.”

Charlotte Walden
Yarmouth