Over the last six months, Israel has repeatedly massacred Palestinians in Gaza, resulting in the deaths of well over thirty thousand Palestinians, some 70 percent of whom are women and children. Tens of thousands more have been injured. These numbers are probably an undercount considering Israel’s deliberate destruction of Gaza’s health care system, which is the sole independent source of these numbers (which are also used by Israel, including its prime minister and the military).

Israel has actively attempted to cause the death of the civilian population of Gaza. This has been done through the destruction of institutions that support life — such as hospitals or aid agencies — as well as by strangling the Gaza Strip from its necessities: food, water, and medicine. As a result, people in Gaza (mainly children) have already begun to die from starvation and dehydration.

Because of the lack of medicine, difficult medical procedures such as amputations and caesareans are conducted with no anaesthetic. Israel has gone further in attempting to destroy the fabric of Palestinian society by deliberately targeting cultural institutions such as universities, libraries, archives, religious buildings, and historical sites.