Last week the Israeli parliament voted to ban UNRWA from Gaza — the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East — thereby eliminating the only secure mechanism for safely bringing water, food, medical supplies, and fuel to 2 million severely desperate Palestinians.

If predictions of their dire straits are even remotely accurate, by the end of this very year, or in 60 scant days, no less than 1 million will not be able to survive. Tel Aviv’s cruel and virtual death sentence of biblical proportions is the last nail to be pounded into the coffin of the existence of an entire people: our sisters and brothers, our grandchildren, our “cousins,” as the Jews of Jerusalem affectionately called each other only a century ago.

Meanwhile, America has provided more than enough firepower and multi-ton bombs to place lunar-size craters on every corner, creating ready-made graveyards, innumerable burial grounds, employing U.S.-made tanks and John Deere bulldozers, to subsume bodies living or dead. Once sufficiently crushed underfoot, the cannons now swivel their sights to the West Bank.

Boycott, divestment and sanctions are all that’s left to disrupt their shameless onslaught. That and our demands upon Sens. Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren, and Rep. Jim McGovern, to do their utmost to call out Congress to pass Sen. Bernie Sanders’ joint resolutions ending military aid to Netanyahu, et. al.

Locally, this Thursday, the Northampton City Council will vote on a “Resolution to Immediately Embargo All US Aid to Israel,” submitted by the local chapter of the Leahy Fast For Palestine. Please bring your support, in person or remotely. Our voice may seem small, but it is as strong as the ages. It begins with the cries of every member of humankind’s family who stared into the face of hellish genocide: Jew or Amalekite, Cherokee or Cambodian.

The Rev. Peter Kakos

Member of Leahy Fast For Palestine, Northampton