When you watch the latest TV news on Israel’s war in Gaza, it feels as if its military had invaded another country. So, it’s important to remind ourselves that the tens of thousands of weapons the Biden administration has been sending to Israel since October 7th, including most recently, as the Washington Post reported, “more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs” — and keep in mind that those 2,000 pounders are “capable of leveling city blocks and leaving craters in the earth 40 feet across and larger” — are meant to be used to obliterate a 25-mile-long strip of land, smaller than some large American cities.
It’s hard to remember a moment when such a relatively tiny area got quite such a pounding, day after day, week after week, month after month.
And keep in mind as well, that not many small areas of land are quite so densely populated (about 14,000 people per square mile), so the toll from those American weapons has been nothing short of devastating. In addition, a 2,000-pound bomb capable of destroying a city block won’t make any distinction between a member of Hamas and families with children. Nor, it’s now all too clear, has the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing compatriots had the faintest urge to make such a distinction. Otherwise, an estimated 10,000 Gazan children, or one of every 100 kids there, wouldn’t be dead and, in all too many cases, buried in the rubble of the buildings in which they lived.
In short, there can be little question that the present war not just in, but on, Gaza, is a crime against humanity (as, of course, was Hamas’s October 7th attack on Israel). With that in mind — and worse yet, no end yet in sight for such a nightmare — let TomDispatch regular Ellen Cantarow, who long ago wrote about Israel for various American publications, offer a glimpse of hell on earth in the world of 2024. Tom