As I write this, Gaza has no water. For weeks now, families have spent their nights in the dark, because Israel has cut off electricity to the Palestinian enclave and also prevented residents from leaving. Gaza residents deal with nightly Israeli bombing raids of historic proportions, in the darkness. Those wounded by the bombs are in the hands of a health care system in collapse. Dedicated and exhausted, nurses and doctors work to save lives, also in the darkness, without running water, anesthesia, or other basic medicines and supplies. In three weeks, nearly 10,000 people have been killed—1,400 in Israel, and 8,000 Palestinians in Gaza, more than 3,000 of whom are children—overwhelmingly by Israel’s siege.
In response to this horror—and to make our contribution to ending it—more than 5,000 Black activists, scholars, artists, and workers have demanded an immediate ceasefire, an end to Israel’s siege, an end to the United States’ support for it, and urgent humanitarian relief to let the people of Gaza live.