Wave upon wave of Israeli aircraft and missiles have been battering the Palestinian
population in the Gaza Strip. This violence — the most brutal for decades — has
already expended more firepower than the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima and has already
taken more lives of civilians in a week than have died in Ukraine. It is as if the Israeli
government — backed fully by the United States — wants to turn Gaza into a ruin so
as to remove the Palestinians in another act of ethnic cleansing, mimicking the Nakba
(Catastrophe) of 1948.
The United States government vetoed UN resolutions to allow for a humanitarian
ceasefire; the US president has joined the Israelis in an information war about the
numbers of war dead; the US military has moved a massive naval strike group into the
Eastern Mediterranean; and the US defense establishment — in contravention of the
Leahy Law (1999) that proscribes arming militaries that are committing gross human
rights violations — has sent military aid to Israel.
Both the Israeli and the US governments have violated humanitarian law, and the
government of Israel has committed both war crimes and crimes against humanity
against the Palestinians.
We call upon the government of Brazil, which holds the presidency of the United
Nations Security Council, to table either an emergency resolution or to release a
president’s statement calling for a ‘no-fly zone’ over Gaza. The Egyptian air force,
billeted nearby at Abu Suweir Air Base, can enforce a ‘no-fly zone’ to prevent
continued bombing of Gaza and allow the UN and other aid agencies to bring
humanitarian relief to the beleaguered Palestinians.
The U.S. Peace Council calls upon all people to stand up against this violent crime
against humanity. Join the November 4 national mobilizations against this genocide by
Israel, and against the US role in this war.

October 30, 2023