Friend,

A new report from the British medical journal, The Lancet, estimates that the death toll in Gaza could reach 186,000.

The world was shocked by this figure, but I am not.

This new expert assessment is in line with the figures our friend Ralph Nader put forward earlier this year when he estimated as many as 200,000 have been killed by Israel in Gaza.

As a medical doctor and a lifelong antiwar activist, I know all too well that bombs and bullets are not the only weapons that kill in war.

From the beginning, the Israeli occupation forces have weaponized hunger and disease by choking off food, electricity, and water. They have intentionally bombed and raided hospitals, set drones to take out ambulances trying to retrieve the wounded, and withheld or destroyed medical supplies.

Israeli forces have collapsed entire apartment buildings full of frightened families and continue to fire on schools. When they forced the last Gazans into crowded, tent-city refugee camps in one tiny corner of the strip – they even bombed the tents.

We’ve ALWAYS known the death toll published by the Gaza Health Ministry was lower than the real number. And with good reason. The GHM numbers are simply the confirmed, recorded deaths documented in hospitals and morgues.

What we also know is that, at every step, Israel has sought to decimate Gaza’s infrastructure and deny them the chance to survive by any means at all. And we don’t have to guess at their intent – they’ve told us, repeatedly.

“We are fighting against human animals.” – Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant

“Turn the Gaza Strip into a slaughterhouse.” – Israeli filmmaker Anat Schwartz

“Erasing all of Gaza from the face of the earth.” – Israeli MP Distel Atbaryan

Today, at least 1.1 million Gazans are facing famine and disease, all while the bombs continue to rain down.

The assessment that Israel’s genocide will snuff out 186,000 Palestinians is a shock to our collective conscience as a human race. It’s impossible to weigh the enormity of the grief and loss the Palestinian people will carry forward.

We cannot measure the toll of their trauma, the cost of lost human potential taken by Israel’s barbarism – or the guilt we will carry for our own government’s complicity.

What we can do is let this galvanize our resolve and our commitment to justice for Palestine. Ours is the ONLY anti-genocide, pro-peace, pro-planet, pro-worker campaign that is fighting to be on the ballot across the country November 5th. Help me get our campaign in front of every voter who supports a ceasefire and lasting peace with justice.

No one could weigh the full body of evidence and say with honesty and conviction that they believe the numbers reported by the Gaza Health Ministry represent the full picture of the death and devastation wrought by Israel.

But Democrats and Republicans are not satisfied with the drastic undercount of the confirmed figures from the most reliable source of this data. They want to erase Israel’s genocide completely.

Two weeks ago, the House passed a bill on a broad bipartisan basis that would forbid the Biden administration from citing death statistics from the Gaza Health Ministry – figures that even Israeli officials rely on for their own intelligence assessments.

The Biden administration – indeed the president himself – have repeatedly undermined the credibility of the Gaza Health Ministry’s figures in order to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the suffering in Gaza.

Now they have license from the House to render it fully invisible.

We will not allow the beautiful souls of the Palestinian people to be reduced to rubble and statistics. Stand with me and make this campaign as strong as we can so we can deliver our mandate for people, planet, and peace on November 5th.

As Gaza goes, we all go.

In solidarity and gratitude,

Jill