Starvation in Gaza? Congress yawns

 

     By Reginald Johnson

                                                  Commentary

  

 It doesn’t appear that members of Congress, including those from Connecticut, are very upset about the desperate conditions in Gaza.

The nation of Israel imposed a blockade on all shipments of humanitarian supplies including food and medicine into Gaza for nearly 3 months, creating starvation conditions. In the last two days Israel decided to lift the blockade, but only partially --- allowing a small number of trucks to come in with food.  UN officials said that while they were pleased that the full blockade had been lifted, what has been delivered represents only a drop in the ocean in terms of need.

Gaza health officials recently reported that there have been dozens of cases of starvation and hundreds if not thousands of young children are being treated for malnutrition in the few hospitals that are left in the territory.

Despite these dire conditions, members of Congress from Connecticut are not saying anything. They are not condemning Israel for the illegal blockade that went on for so long and now has only been partially lifted, and they’ve done nothing to urge President Trump to take action against Israel for this embargo of desperately needed food.

I placed calls to Congressman Jim Himes, who represents the Fourth Congressional District in Connecticut, urging him to make a statement condemning the blockade and calling for urgent action to deliver food. But his office indicated twice now in the last two weeks that he has not made such a statement criticizing Israel. I indicated that I was extremely upset over this and would not vote for him as a result in the future.

 I also called Sen. Richard Blumenthal’s office twice and on one call his office indicated that the senator as well had not made a statement criticizing Israel nor indicated any concern about the desperate situation in Gaza. I don’t know whether this has anything to do with the substantial donations that Blumenthal gets from the Israeli lobby called AIPAC. I hope that there is no connection, but I suspect that there might be.

 When I called Blumenthal’s office on Tuesday there was a three minute hold with nice classical music playing. Nobody picked up. After three minutes. I got disgusted and dropped the call. Last week I called Sen. Chris Murphy’s office. I was met with a taped greeting and no human being to speak with. I left a message stating my concern about Gaza and urged the office to get back to me. That never happened.

It is shameful that these representatives of ours in Congress are not showing more compassion for the people of Gaza and recognize their desperate plight. In addition to facing starvation conditions, thousands of Gazans are being forced to move once again by the Israeli army which has mounted a new offensive in the northern part of the strip. This is really a barbaric situation and it has been condemned by many world leaders, officials in the UN and human rights organizations.

 Unfortunately, most members of Congress are staying quiet. Again, I have to think that the widespread contributions by AIPAC to members of our national legislature have something to do with this. It appears that our elected representatives are putting their political needs ahead of the needs of starving people overseas. How low is that?

 It should be noted as well, that my former profession, the press, has not stood tall in regard to the terrible situation in Gaza. I’m hardly seeing anybody in television news or in the newspapers denouncing Israel for the genocide taking place. There's also little hard news coverage of Israel's brutal bombing or reporting on the famine conditions. And newspapers turn away opinion pieces that criticize Israel. I know this first-hand, since the Connecticut Post failed to run my op-ed calling for an end to the blockade.

  It’s going to be up to regular people on the ground to speak out on the catastrophe going on now in the Middle East --- to condemn Israel, to condemn the Trump administration for failure to stop Israel’s barbaric campaign and to push members of Congress into taking action.

 Only through grassroots pressure will the horror of Gaza be brought to an end.

 

 

 

 

Excusing the inexcusable

  By Reginald Johnson

   Here we are. The prime minister of Israel says the ethnic cleansing of Gaza is "inevitable." (Jerusalem Post) And he talks about it matter of factly. No biggie. And in America and Europe people sit around and say 'ho-hum.' Next.

 Now just suppose some fanatical leader of another country, say like a Benjamin Netanyahu, said the same thing about forcibly removing a group of white Europeans, Americans or Jews from some place. Oh well, that would be a different story. Then the shit would hit the fan.

 There would be thunderous speeches in the halls of Congress, in the British parliament and in Paris, denouncing the outrage. "We will not let this stand!" would be the cry.

 But alas, here we're talking about the Palestinians, Arabic people, who the British used to deride as “wogs.” No need to get excited. Expendable.

 Has the human race advanced the last 500 years ---- morally? No, not one iota.

Media ignores starving children in Gaza

 

  ­(I submitted the following op-ed to the Connecticut Post (part of the Hearst chain) last week and so far it hasn’t run. I don’t think it will. I mention the sacred cow, Israel, in a negative light, so that generally means you’re in a no-go zone for most media. It doesn’t matter apparently that tens of thousands of people, many children, will die of starvation because of Israel’s supremely cruel blockade that prevents food from getting in to Gaza.  Nope, can’t run it. The Connecticut Post is not alone. Did you see anything about the Gaza famine on last weekend’s TV news shows? No. This terrible catastrophe is being ignored. Shame on the media. I reprint here the op-ed piece I submitted to the Post,)

 

 

                           END THE GAZA BLOCKADE

 

    By Reginald Johnson

    May 7, 2025

 

    A human catastrophe is unfolding in Gaza.

    For the past two months, Israel has been imposing a blockade on the shipment of all food and medical supplies into Gaza, where Israel has been fighting Hamas militants since October of 2023. Trucks loaded with food are lined up at the Gaza border and they can’t get in.

  As a result, some 1.1 million residents are trapped in the zone without any new food, medicine and precious little water. Starvation is on the rise.

 Just days ago, officials of the Gaza Health Ministry reported that 57 Palestinians have died of starvation. According to officials of the Gaza Government Media Office, some 3500 children under the age of five years “face imminent death by starvation” and some 290,000 children are “on the brink of death.”

 Olga Cherevko, an aid worker with the United Nations Humanitarian Office (OCHA) in Gaza City said, “Hungry people are scavenging in mounds of waste for anything that would help them survive…I am seeing children and I am seeing elderly people rummaging through these piles of trash not only in search of things to burn but also things to eat daily.”

 The CEOs of 12 major aid organizations, including Oxfam, Save the Children, CARE and NRC, said in a joint statement recently that, “Survival itself is now slipping out of reach and the humanitarian system is at a breaking point.”

 Those organizations said that they are ready to begin resupplying humanitarian aid if they get the go-ahead, but they’re still waiting. Israeli officials say they are imposing the blockade in order to put pressure on Hamas to release the remaining Israeli hostages they have been holding.

 But officials of human rights organizations and the UN say Israel is violating international law by imposing the blockade. “Any use of starvation of the civilian population as a method of war constitutes a war crime and so do all forms of collective punishment,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk.

 If the blockade is not ended very soon, a famine of catastrophic proportions will set in for the people of Gaza. It is imperative now that world leaders, including President Trump, European heads of state and others, put pressure on Israel to end the blockade and allow desperately needed food supplies to reach Gaza.

  

 

 Reginald Johnson is a freelance writer who lives Bridgeport, CT

 

 

Israeli TV: Netanyahu blocked peace in Gaza while Biden did nothing to stop the slaughter

    By Reginald Johnson

  

  An investigation by Channel 13 in Israel has revealed that during the first 16 months of the Gaza War, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu actively impeded efforts to bring about a peace settlement and that at no point did the US administration of former US President Joe Biden demand that Israel curtail its brutal military operation and agree to a cease-fire, despite a mounting death toll.

The bombshell report also showed that American officials were aware of Israeli war crimes but covered them up in order to give legal clearance for continuing to ship weapons to Israel.

The report was posted on the Drop Site News site on X.

“A sweeping Israeli channel 13 investigation has exposed the administration’s complicity in Israel’s 19-months long war in Gaza. Nine top Biden officials acknowledged avoiding real pressure on Israel – even as the death toll surpassed 30,000. Israeli leaders openly bragged they dragged out the war playing for time until Donald Trump’s return to the presidency,” said the cover story by Drop Site News. Former Israeli officials were also interviewed.

“God, did the state of Israel favor that Biden was the president,” said former Israeli Ambassador Michael Herzog. “We fought for over a year in Gaza and the administration never came to us and said ‘cease-fire now.’  It never did. And that’s not to be taken for granted.”

 The report said that Biden aides privately admitted that Netanyahu was prolonging the war. “He’s undercutting it every step of the way,” said Ilan Goldenberg, a senior national security aide. “All the security people are coming out and saying it,” he said.

The report said Netanyahu spurned possible peace plans, including a proposal by the US and Saudi Arabia. That plan collapsed because it required acceptance of a “political horizon” for the Palestinians and Netanyahu would not agree to it.

The Channel 13 investigation also said Netanyahu sabotaged the talks on the release of the Israeli hostages, in order to extend the war. The Israeli prime minister “deliberately tanked negotiations” fearing a deal would force him to end the war.

  The investigation also found that American officials were aware of Israeli forces illegally blocking humanitarian aid shipments into Gaza but covered it up. State Department official Stacy Gilbert resigned after the revelations about the Israeli violations were taken out of a required aid compliance report.

  “The final version cleared Israel of violating US law despite overwhelming evidence of aid obstruction.” Gilbert called it “shocking in its mendacity”  and said “everyone knows this is not true.”

  The Channel 13 story added, "Even as settlers looted Gaza-bound trucks and Israel blocked humanitarian aid, Biden certified compliance and kept weapons flowing."

   The Gaza War began in October of 2024, after Hamas militants raided a southern Israel music fair, and killed 1200 people. Some 240 hostages were taken. Israel then launched a furious air and ground assault into the Palestinian enclave and thousands were killed in the first few weeks.

  The war has dragged on since then with staggering results. Some 60,000 Gazans, mostly civilians, are dead; much of Gaza's infrastructure has been leveled, including universities and apartment buildings; and most of Gaza's hospitals are destroyed or heavily damaged. Now 2.2 million residents are under threat of starvation, as Israel has imposed a food and water blockade.

  UN officials have accused Israel of waging a genocide in Gaza, which Israel has strenuously denied.

  The US has fully backed Israel in the war and billions of dollars in military aid has been provided.

"Survival itself is now slipping out of reach"

  By Reginald Johnson

   Commentary

 There is a humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Palestine.

 Hundreds of thousands of people could die from lack of food due to an Israeli blockade.

 Will the world stand by and let this happen?

This is a post from the website "Drop Site News":

 "URGENT: Multiple credible sources – including UN agencies, 12 major international NGOs, and journalists on the ground – report that most of Gaza’s 2.2 million people are now surviving on just one meal per day or less due to Israel’s total blockade on food and other essentials since March 2.

 The CEOs of 12 major aid organizations, including Oxfam, Save the Children, CARE, NRC, and others, said in a joint statement on April 17, 2025:

 'Survival itself is now slipping out of reach and the humanitarian system is at breaking point.

 'Every single person in Gaza is relying on humanitarian aid to survive. That lifeline has been completely cut off since a blockade on all aid supplies was imposed by Israeli authorities on 2 March.

 'We have supplies ready. We have trained medical staff. We have the expertise. What we don’t have is the access – or the guarantee by Israeli authorities that our teams can safely do their job.' " 

  There needs to be a massive outcry against Israel's cruel blockade. People must demand that it be lifted --- immediately. We cannot let a mass starvation event take place on our watch.

 Call the White House comment line at 202-456-1111 and make your voice heard.  Also call the Capitol Switchboard, at 202-224-3121 and ask to be connected to your members of Congress in the House and Senate. Tell them you want them to call for an end to the Israeli blockade and an end to the vicious war against Gaza. If they won't agree to do this, say you will vote against them in the next election.

 One other suggestion. This is from Facebook friend Mary Anne Doty: "Email the Israeli embassy and demand they stop the deliberate starvation of 2.2 million human beings in Gaza. Consular@washington.mfa.gov.i"

Newtown protestors blast Trump cuts

  By Reginald Johnson

   

   NEWTOWN, CT --- Despite a chill in the air and light rain, hundreds of people showed up at a park here Saturday to protest the Trump administration’s possible cutbacks in federal services including Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security and legal attacks on the rights of immigrants and pro-Palestinian activists.

 The “Hands-off” rally was one of many held in Connecticut and around the country to demonstrate strong grassroots opposition to the reductions discussed by President Trump and his billionaire advisor Elon Musk and the administration’s fascistic policies on deportations and free speech rights.

  “I want to let you know that in Connecticut people are coming out by the thousands!”  Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz shouted to the crowd. “In Middletown, I was at a march with 1000 people, in Guilford there was 700 people on Guilford Green, there was 1000 people on the New Haven Green and now we’re looking at here 500 plus people in Newtown strong!” she said, as people cheered.

   "People are saying “Hands off our rights, hands off our liberty, hands off our democracy, and hands off our wallets!” Bysiewicz said, adding “That’s why Donald Trump, while you’re out playing golf, in Newtown we’re standing up and speaking out about everything that’s right about our country.”

 Bysiewicz went on: “What’s really important is that the proposed federal cuts are aimed at decimating all of the programs that lifted people up and kept people out of poverty. That is Medicare, that is Medicaid and that is Social Security --- the things that help the most vulnerable people in our state. If you don’t know this, you need to, that in Connecticut nearly 1 million people out of  3 million plus residents, rely on Medicaid for their healthcare. So that’s our kids, that’s our elderly, those are the pregnant moms."

  Trump and officials in his administration insist that they plan no actual reduction in services in programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security but they are trying to root out “waste, fraud and abuse.”  Musk, who is heading the new "Department of Government Efficiency," or “DOGE,” maintains that the waste uncovered will secure hundreds of billions of dollars worth of savings, without reducing services.

 But people at the Newtown rally and other critics say Trump and Musk are lying and that cutbacks in services are definitely on the horizon and people will be hurt.

    

Rally-goers in Newtown express their feelings. (Reginald Johnson photo)

                                   

Some fear the rise of fascism under Trump. (Reginald Johnson photo)

                                 

          

             

 

'Nobody's going to force us out'

   By Reginald Johnson 

 Lana Savoca was stunned.

 President Donald Trump had just announced that the United States would take over the war ravaged Gaza Strip “clean it up” and redevelop it as a new “Riviera” on the Mediteranean.

  At a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump said the “spectacular” new development would bring new jobs, new housing and finally peace to the area. But he also said the people there would have to relocated and it was possible US troops might be used to assist in the operation, although administration officials later walked that back.

  “It’s really a shock to me. I couldn’t believe it,” said Savoca, a writer and Palestinian activist who lives in Greenwich, CT.

 “It’s a real slap in the face to see them sitting next to each other (Trump and Netanyahu) talking about Gaza and just prime real estate and how they were going to clean it up and how it’s destroyed now and how people can’t live there and trying to find a better place for Palestinians,” she said. “In other words, ethnic cleansing them and saying it in such a calm, methodical manner. I mean, I wish I had better words for it, but it’s kind of unbelievable.”

 Savoca, who lost over 90 members of her extended family during Israel’s brutal 15-month military operation in Gaza, said she was surprised by the President’s words because during his campaign Trump had expressed anger at Netanyahu for the way Israel had acted during the war. She thought he would have come up with a better plan for the future.

  Savoca said the idea of the Palestinians being forced out of Gaza is appalling and brings back memories of the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes to create land for Israel in 1948. This followed approval of a UN partition plan dividing the old Palestine, which had been held by the British.

 Palestinians call that period “The Nakba,”  which in Arabic means, catastrophe.

 “It’s just awful, these people who’ve been through so much, and now they’re choosing to stay, and they’re traveling back up north where their homes used to be and now there’s nothing but rubble and poisons from all the destruction and they desperately want to stay there,” she said.

 

Lana Savoca at a protest against the Gaza war in Washington, D.C.

                  

  Trump’s plan for a Gaza takeover has been widely criticized by leaders in the Middle East and also some in the West including Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Legal experts have also said that the US taking Gaza over and driving people out is a breach of international and humanitarian law.

 Despite the criticism,Trump has doubled down on his plan in interviews and in social media posts. While Democrats have attacked Trump’s idea some Republicans have endorsed it.

  Observers also worry that Trump’s proposal for a US takeover of Gaza and relocation of the Palestinians undermines the chances that the fragile cease-fire in place for the past several weeks can still hold. The truce put at least a temporary stop to a war which has taken 66,000 lives and left Gaza in ruins. World court officials have labeled Israel’s campaign an act of genocide.

 Another Palestinian who is sharply critical of  the Trump plan is Johnny Sakakini, who operates  Abby’s Falafel restaurant in Trumbull.

 “He’s got a mad dog mentality," Sakakini said of Trump. "This is barbaric. So much has been destroyed and so many killed and now America is coming to steal the rest. There’s no respect for anything. I don’t even know why the United Nations even exists, if America can come along and do whatever the hell they want and nobody can stop them.”

  “So basically it’s 1948 all over again in a different way – with American hands,”  he said. “Before it was British hands, now it’s American hands. Steal and grab land from Palestinians and expel them and keep them as refugees for the rest of  their lives somewhere else.”

 Sakakini, who grew up in the West Bank and then immigrated to the United States over 30 years ago, said the Trump idea is doomed to failure, because the Palestinian people will not be expelled.

 “They’re not going to leave, no matter what he does,” he said. “If Israel could not do anything for 15 months, with all the power, all the weapons it has engaged in, almost like nuking the place down, and we stayed, we’re not going anywhere, we’re staying. Nobody’s going to force us out.”

        

Johnny Sakakini, a Palestinian-American, at his restaurant in Trumbull.

  Harold Koh, Professor of International Law at Yale Law School,  told the BBC that the Gaza takeover idea  "is an astonishingly misguided policy proposal that would also be massively illegal.”

  “As a matter of policy. we have a President who’s proposing to fix the century-old Middle East problem by building a beach resort on destroyed property of people of color, who’ve been involuntarily displaced maybe even by the U.S. Army. It’s a bit of an Atlantic City solution to a serious and horrible problem,” Koh said.

 He added,  “The way that he proposes to do it sounds like forcible displacement which is a war crime, a crime against humanity and also an invasion of sovereignty and a violation of the right of self-determination which is a violation of the UN Charter.”

  Sakakini was asked what can be done at this point to help the Palestinians and solve the conflict with Israel.

  “What can be done is, leave it to the United Nations. The only way is for the Palestinians to have their own place, what it was in 1967 (prior to the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank) and Israel has their land. Just leave us alone, let us live in peace. Stop poking with us. That’s the only way,” he said.