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As I write this, I am learning that Israel just bombed a refugee camp in Gaza. I grimace as I watch a video of a man covered in soot carrying a screaming child out of the rubble.
As of today, over 5,000 children in Gaza are either missing or dead. That’s the equivalent of more than half of all children in the city of DeKalb disappearing in three weeks.
Israel’s retaliation against Hamas’s attack on Oct. 7 has become an excuse to flatten Gaza and commit what U.N. officials are now calling a genocide. Meanwhile, our government continues its unabated support for Israel, calling for more funding for a war that has killed thousands of Palestinians, including newborns and toddlers, in just weeks.
The callousness at the heart of our nation is truly unbelievable.
I’ve called my Congressional representatives almost every day in the past few weeks – and despite my and many others’ calls, despite the 80% of Democrats and 66% of Americans who support a ceasefire, despite the family members of those killed or abducted by Hamas calling for a cessation in hostilities, Sen. Tammy Duckworth and Rep. Lauren Underwood have yet to explicitly call for one.
Democracy is not democracy if our leaders do not listen to the voices of the people, which have spoken loud and clear across the globe.
Lift the siege. Implement a ceasefire now. There will be no way toward peace without it – only the continued and wanton wasting of precious human lives.
Shrestha Singh
DeKalb