Netanyahu is committing crimes against humanity in Gaza
Netanyahu must be tried for his crimes!
Given my father is a Palestinian immigrant, I’ve followed for as long as I can remember the “Question of Palestine.” To me, this is not a political issue, but rather a personal one. Growing up, my aunts, uncles and cousins would visit our New Jersey home—given my father was the oldest member and first Obeidallah to immigrate to the United States. At those gatherings, somewhere between the lamb and sweet desserts/strong coffee, talk would turn to the situation “back home” -- as they referred to it.
Over the decades as I’ve followed this conflict, there have been countless times that the suffering of Palestinians in the West Bank where my family is located and in the “open air prison” of Gaza has been on the verge of unbearable. But what we’ve seen in Gaza over the past year and half have been the most painful images I’ve ever seen from this conflict. The imagery of Palestinian Christian and Muslim children killed, maimed, scarred together with parents wailing in despair has frequently knocked the wind out of me. How can the world allow such suffering to take place?!
Now we have reached a new level of horror as Benjamin Netanyahu-who was already charged in November 2024 with war crimes by the International Criminal Court—is now engaged in using starvation as a weapon to carry out his genocide. And yes, this is a genocide—not because I say that but because experts and organizations that focus on this issue have declared it to be. Just yesterday, two Israeli human rights groups including B’Tselem concluded it’s a genocide. In addition, I recently spoke with Brown University Professor Omar Bartov –an expert on The Holocaust and genocide studies—who explained why what Netanyahu is doing is a genocide under international law and why it’s important to use that very term. (I encourage you to watch my interview of Dr. Bartov at the bottom of this article where he lays out in a thoughtful and compassionate manner his reasoning.)
As Prof. Bartov laid out in his recent powerful op-ed for The NY Times, the death toll in Gaza is more than 57,000 people-- including more than 17,000 children who account for nearly a third of the total fatality count. Nearly 900 children killed were less than a year old. As Prof Bartov wrote, “Gaza now has the grim distinction of having the highest number of amputee children per capita in the world.”
In fact, just last week I met one of those children, a Palestinian teenager from Gaza who is in the United States for medical treatment thanks to the organization Heal Palestine. She suffered extensive burns that have scarred her face and lost parts of her hand after an Israeli military bombing. Worse, her 8-year-old and 15-year-old brothers were killed by Israeli air strikes in the densely populated Gaza strip.
It's not just the loss of life. Netanyahu’s goal as advocated by right wing ministers in his regime is to make Gaza unlivable for Palestinians. That is why the Israeli military has “destroyed or damaged” 70 percent of all structures in the Gaza —as documented by the well-respected Israeli newspaper, Haaretz.
In addition, as Prof. Bartov noted, when the Israeli military moves large swaths of Palestinians out of areas, they then flatten the area leaving no homes, schools or places of worship left standing to return to. That is all part of the plan to make Gaza uninhabitable. (Bartov warned next Netanyahu will do the same in the West Bank.)
That brings us to the starvation of Palestinian Christians and Muslims we are now seeing. It’s become so undeniable that on Monday, Donald Trump said about the images of children in Gaza, “that’s real starvation stuff, I see it” as he pledged more support. Even the vile Marjorie Taylor Greene denounced the starvation of children in Gaza.
The World Food Program, led by its American executive director, Cindy McCain, said last week that one-third of Gaza’s population had not eaten for multiple days in a row. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared that acute malnutrition in northern Gaza tripled this month--reaching nearly one in five children under 5 years old.
And now we are seeing people die. The WHO announced Sunday that there have been 63 malnutrition-related deaths in Gaza this month, including 24 children under the age of five. That is up from 11 deaths in total over the previous six months of the year. Gaza’s Health Ministry puts the number even higher with 82 deaths this month of malnutrition-related causes--of which were 24 were children.
It did not have to be this--but this is what Netanyahu wanted. Starving the people of Gaza to cause the surrender of Hamas has been called for by Israeli leaders since the war began in October 2023. Known as “the General’s Plan,” the scheme called for a full siege of Gaza to cause Palestinian militants to "surrender or die of hunger." Obviously, the problem is the civilians would die as well but to Netanyahu and the other religious supremacists of his far-right coalition, Christians and Muslim Palestinians are viewed as inherently inferior. As Prof. Bartov explained, numerous Israeli leaders have long used language design to dehumanize Palestinians--which lays the groundwork for these type of genocidal actions.
And it’s not just Israeli leaders. American supporters of Netanyahu, like AIPAC backed GOP Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla) has continually peddled language designed to dehumanize Christian and Muslim Palestinians, as he has called for their mass slaughter. In fact, he posted on Twitter a few days ago with a news story about Palestinian children dying of starvation, “Release the hostages. Until then, starve away.”
Why the starvation now? Well before March 2025, food was distributed to the two million people in Gaza from hundreds of points close to where people lived by way of a system overseen by the United Nations. But Netanyahu ended that. In May, he created a new system-as the NY Times described it—which relies on private contractors instead of the United Nations. And instead of hundreds of places to obtain food, this new cruel scheme requires Palestinians to “walk for miles through extremely dangerous areas to reach the distribution sites, making it almost impossible for them to find food safely or cheaply.”
Adding to the inhumanity, the Israeli military has killed hundreds of people--women, children and men—over the past two months who were seeking food at increasingly chaotic food distribution points. As the NY Times reported, despite Netanyahu claiming his military only fired “warning shorts,” in reality “international doctors who have treated the wounded say that the location of their injuries indicated that soldiers systematically targeted their torsos.”
Netanyahu has imprisoned, bombed, shot and now starved the people of Gaza. No one is safe. Just last week the Israeli military bombed a Catholic church in broad daylight where hundreds had been sheltering –killing three and wounding the parish priest. In response, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem stated, "The people in the Holy Family Compound are people who found in the Church a sanctuary -- hoping that the horrors of war might at least spare their lives, after their homes, possessions, and dignity had already been stripped away."
Netanyahu was charged in November 2024 with war crimes by the International Criminal Court at The Hague, including using “starvation as a method of warfare.” His response since then has been to double down on these crimes against humanity. Netanyahu must be brought to justice along with any others who participated in these war crimes. That is the only way to reduce the chances we see another leader engage in the same type of barbarism.
Below is my interview with Israeli American Omer Bartov-a Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University. I hope people will watch it with an open mind:
Unforgivable and Must STOP 🛑 Thank you, Dean, for keeping this Horrible situation on the front burner, and will reStack ASAP 🙏
There is little doubt that he is a War Criminal and should be prosecuted.