Letter to U.s. Representative
By Dorothea Laster
U.S. Representative:
On September 15, 1963, a local KKK terrorist organization bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church, killing four little Black girls. Dr. Martin Luther King is quoted as saying that it was "one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity." The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing marked a turning point in the United States during the civil rights movement and contributed to support for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by Congress.
So much suffering could have been spared if, after the first time Israel bombed “only” four little Palestinian children, or the first four hundred children, or the first four thousand children, you had acted on the side of humanity. Initially, perhaps, you believed that Israel “accidentally” bombed the “safe” evacuation routes, the refugee camps, the ambulances at Nasser and Indonesia hospitals, the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, twice, and bombed the Doctors Without Borders Clinic.
But these “accidents” became patterns of war crimes and atrocities by Israel, seared into the collective consciousness of Americans, including:
2023
In November 2023, the IDF forced doctors and parents of premature babies in incubators to leave Al-Nasr Children's Hospital in Gaza City at gunpoint and lied saying that an ambulance was coming to take the babies. On November 28, the five infants' bodies were found decomposed.
Civilians were stripped and abducted. Multiple mass graves have been identified in Gaza since October 7, 2023.
On December 16, 2023, Israel bulldozed sick, displaced and wounded patients after a strike on a hospital at Kamal Adwan hospital.
Israeli settlers beat Palestinians in the West Bank, stealing their belongings, destroying their crops, stealing their livestock, stealing their homes, and it is ongoing.
Israeli forces shoot and murder Palestinians attempting to fish to eat, and it is ongoing.
2024
On January 29, 2024, six-year-old Hind Rajab survived the tank fire that killed everyone else in the car. She called the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, her 3 hours of cries for help were recorded. Two paramedics who attempted to save her were murdered. Israel then murdered her with approximately 335 bullets from a tank close enough to see they were civilians.
On January 30, 2024. Basil Al-Ghazawi (age 19), who was paralyzed, was murdered in his hospital bed, with his brother and friend, by Israelis disguised as doctors. There is video.
On multiple videos, Israeli snipers murdered an elderly woman, a boy, an elderly man, a man holding a child, a child, fleeing and then shot those who came to their aid.
On video, Israeli bombs blow up and incinerate children on bicycles.
In March 2024, a handcuffed man was reportedly run over by an Israeli tank.
On April 19, 2024, Dr. Adnan Al Bursh, a prominent Palestinian orthopedic surgeon and head of the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza died under torture, with evidence of sexual violence, in Sde Teiman detention center where he was initially held.
In April 2024, mass graves were found containing hundreds of bodies, some stripped naked with their hands tied behind their backs at Nasser and Al-Shifa Hospitals.
In July 2024, an IDF soldier admitted to running over “hundreds of terrorists, dead and alive” with a bulldozer.
In September 2024, the IDF was videoed pushing apparently lifeless bodies of Palestinians from roofs during a West Bank raid.
Save the Children reported that 1 in 10 children in Gaza had at least one amputation, many without anesthesia, and called Gaza a graveyard for children.
Israel loots Gazan’s stores and homes, there is video, it is ongoing.
In 2024, at least five American citizens Tawfic Jabbar (age 17), Mohammad Khdour (age 17), Aysenur Eygi (age 26), Omar Rabea (age 14), Sayfollah Musallet (age 20), were killed by Israel in the West Bank.
2025
On March 2, 2025, Israel imposed a 100% blockade of food and aid into Gaza. Humanitarian groups sounded the alarm.¹
On March 23, 2025, Israel murdered 15 Palestinian first responders dispatched to reach wounded. The IDF claimed that they were “suspicious vehicles” without headlights or emergency lights. On video.
On video, Israeli bombed and incinerated young men walking carrying flour.
On video, Israel burned a journalist alive after bombing his tent as part of its targeting of journalists.
Israel bombed a school with families living in it killing them. There is video of the bombing.
In May 2025, the United States- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) began operations, manned by mercenaries, not aid workers. Rather than use 400 distribution sites as the NGOs had done, they used four remote sites. It was designed to fail and dehumanize. The GHF lured starving Palestinians who had to walk for miles in the hopes of receiving aid and then shot at them in a sort of hunger games. Israeli forces have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians as they were trying to access food in Gaza.²
Israeli troops admit being ordered to shoot aid-seeking Gaza civilians.³ Whistleblower Green Beret Anthony Aguilar has also spoken about this at length including with Tucker Carlson.
Netanyahu admits arming Gazan criminal gangs with ISIS links to attack Gazans.⁴
Israel blocked entry of baby formula into Gaza. In June 2025, hospitals and aid workers warned that infants would die if baby formula continued to be blocked.⁵
Israel stopped foreign doctors who tried to smuggle baby formula into Gaza in their personal belongings.
In July 2025, Israel shot at World Food Program aid workers so they could not deliver aid. Cindy McCain posted video debunking Israel’s claim that the UN refused to deliver aid, and confirming that the IDF was shooting at both aid workers and civilians.⁶
Israel shot and killed Palestinian men trying to help an NGO deliver aid to the people.
On video, Israeli citizens are permitted to destroy aid at Rafah on an ongoing basis. Food rots while people starve to death.
In July 2025, Healthcare Workers Watch (HWW) reported dozens of doctors were being held in Israeli prisons, many for over 400 days with no charges. As of February 2025, HWW reported that 339 healthcare workers have been detained with at least 160 still in Israeli prisons.
Israel has as many as 12,000 Palestinian adult and child abductees in torture prisons, most held without charge or trial.
A prisoner was gang raped on video. Rape is used by Israel systematically. Since October 2023, more than 70 Palestinian detainees have died in Israeli jails amid widespread torture.7
On July 28, 2025, unarmed Palestinian filmmaker Awdah Hathaleen who worked on the film “No Other Land” was murdered in cold blood by Israeli settler Yinon Levi. It was videoed. Levi was not punished.
August 2, 2025, Israel bombed the Red Crescent headquarters in Khan Younis killing an aid worker.
On August 10, 2025, an Israeli drone murdered a girl seven- or eight-year-old carrying water on in Gaza City. It was videoed.
Gaza has no freshwater resources. Israel pours cement into water resources to destroy them. On August 24, 2025, Doctor’s without Borders sent out an animation asking to be allowed to have their water treatment trucks enter Gaza so people may live.
On August 22, 2025, famine was declared in Gaza City. Famine conditions are projected to spread from Gaza Governorate to Deir Al Balah and Khan Younis Governorates in the coming weeks.
On August 25, 2025, Israel bombed Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. Health workers were attempting to help an injured journalist. Israel then bombed the rescuers, killing 15-20 healthcare workers, journalists and a rescue worker. It was videoed.
In August 2025, Marco Rubio canceled visas for emergency medical care for wounded Gazan children at the behest of Laura Loomer.
Israel intends annihilation particularly of Palestinian children:
Moshe Feiglin, a former member of the Israeli parliament (Knesset) shockingly stated that every child in Gaza is the enemy. Israel has called Palestinian children “Amalek.”8
Israel is waging war on Palestinian children.9
A British surgeon claims IDF soldiers are shooting Palestinians at aid points like target practice. He is reported as saying that children would come in with similar wound patterns on the same day. One day the IDF would practice shooting them in the head, another day in the chest, another day in the testicles.10
Children starve so much faster than adults in Gaza because they have less muscle mass to begin and their metabolism is much higher.11
The bloated stomachs seen in the pictures of starving children is because of their bodies cannibalizing itself to survive, and critical organs for life, the liver and kidneys fail.12
Statistics:
More than 100,000 tons of bombs have been dropped by Israel on Gaza, provided largely by you, the United States Congress. That is the equivalent of 7 times what the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima, the equivalent of 25 times what the U.S. dropped on the German city of Dresden during World War II.
Over 70,000 Palestinians have been murdered and positively identified, with expert estimates exceeding 200,000 when including indirect deaths and those buried under rubble.
The IDF's own figures demonstrate that 83% of those murdered have been Palestinian civilians.
As of mid-2025, at least 19,000 of that number are murdered children.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians are missing and presumed dead under the rubble. Gazans have no bulldozers and have had to dig out loved ones with their hands.
Israel has murdered over 408 aid workers.
Israel has targeted and murdered at least 232 journalists and many of their families. The Gaza-journalist death toll surpasses that of both world wars.
90% of Gaza's population has been forcibly displaced.
Israel has engaged in extensive destruction of Gaza's farmland and olive trees, bulldozing tens of thousands of olive trees, and making unusable Gaza's farmland.
Israel has engaged in democide with widespread destruction of up to 90% of civilian infrastructure. All 36 hospitals in Gaza have been bombed, many repeatedly. The Sheikh Hamad Prosthetic Limbs Hospital was bombed in May 2025. The only specialized cancer treatment hospital was destroyed in March 2025.
The Israeli genocide in Gaza is one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity. This is the holocaust of our times. What will it take for you to demand an end to the genocide and an immediate and massive infusion of food and medical aid? Please review your duties under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. States must prosecute persons accused of genocide through competent tribunals, not welcome Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir to Congress and not support them with billions of taxpayer dollars to further their war crimes.
2 https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/number-aid-seekers-killed-israel-142754339.html
3 https://www.commondreams.org/news/idf-gaza-aid-killings
4 https://newsbook.com.mt/en/netanyahu-admits-arming-gaza-criminal-gangs-with-isis-links
9 https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-waging-war-palestinian-children-why
10 https://www.lbc.co.uk/world-news/british-surgeon-idf-soldiers-shooting-palestinians/
