May 7, 2025
Daily massacres, food as a weapon of war, and what this stage of genocide means for the world
It is day 578 of the genocide. In the past 24 hours alone, at least 4 separate massacres have occurred across Gaza.
On Al-Wihda street in central Gaza, at least 30 martyrs ascended and dozens more were injured following Israeli bombing of soup kitchens, cafes, and vendors. Not even an hour before, IOF airstrikes targeted Al-Rimal neighborhood, hitting both the busy Palmyra intersection and inside the Thai Restaurant in West Gaza City, killing at least 20 Palestinians and injuring 150 more. In total, the official count from today stands at 102 martyrs and 193 injured, numbers that are expected to rise.
Meanwhile, Israel is withholding all food and aid from entering Gaza for the 66th day in a row, with the full support and backing of the US administration. Israel has used food as a weapon before, counting the calories allowed into Gaza after it imposed a siege in 2008 that has remained in effect until this day. During the genocide, the IOF spent 18 months bombing farms, bakeries, livestock, and food infrastructure to prevent any agricultural self-sufficiency within Gaza itself.
Now, with American support and as the siege enters a lethal stage for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, Zionists again plan to use food as a weapon, withholding food and conditioning its distribution once Gaza is re-occupied to secure the occupation's interests in the area. Those conditions are likely to be either full capitulation to and acceptance of reoccupation by the Israeli occupation army, or in the alternative, forced removal from Palestine to neighboring countries.
These conditions are not happening in a vacuum, but on the heels of several important developments. They are happening on the heels of Israel's formal ratification of a plan to fully and permanently occupy Gaza, with the stated goal of a "conquest" of the territory and forced removal of over 2 million Palestinians there. They are happening at a time of acute siege, with among the worst if not the worst famine conditions since the genocide began nearly 600 days ago.
Finally, these massacres come days before US President Donald Trump is scheduled to visit the region. While the exact contours of Trump's plans are not known, Trump is expected to announce U.S.-brokered agreements and contracts that will accelerate the ethnic cleansing of Gaza through forced resettlement projects. He is also expected to announce new regional normalization efforts, in an effort to contain unrest from the Arab masses angered over the continuing genocide, as well as to prevent the formation of larger regional alliances that could pose a threat to the Zionist project.
The Zionist occupation's sabotage of the truce agreement, its reimposition of a total siege on March 2, and the coercive attempt by Donald Trump and the US administration to force a "deal" have together brought down debilitating, life- threatening pressure on the more than 2 million Palestinians who remain in Gaza. All of these pressures are being consciously and intentionally leveraged by Israel and the United States. All are being mobilized and called upon in service of one political objective above all others: the full and final ethnic cleansing of Gaza, and the territory's permanent occupation by Zionist settlers.
This is a moment of reckoning for the national liberation struggle, for the Palestinian and Arab masses, and for the people of the world, who were lied to by imperialist powers and told that the existence of international law and legal recognition of universal human rights would prevent a genocide from ever happening again. This is a moment of confrontation between the masses on the one hand, and the forces of Zionism and imperialism on the other, who seek to liquidate the Palestinian struggle and wipe an entire people and nation off the face of the earth.
This moment is, above all, an ultimatum for those international institutions, states, and decision-making bodies who have feigned concern for nearly 20 months of genocide while either standing by in silence or aiding and abetting in the slaughter themselves. This moment is an ultimatum for all those who have either stood on the sidelines or bathed their hands in the blood of tens of thousands of Palestinian children: to seal their own fate as cowards and shills for the forces of Zionism and imperialism, or to make known which side they stand on, not through words, but through their actions.
The line has been drawn between those who will harness whatever power they have to end this waking nightmare, and those who will be complicit in all that has been done, is being done, and has yet to be done to the Palestinian people. Only two questions remain. What side of the line do you stand on? And if you stand on that side opposed to genocide, colonialism, and destruction of a land called Palestine and its people, what will you concede, sacrifice, or put forth in service of Palestinian liberation?