Death Trap - Poster of the Week
- politicalgraphics
- Aug 1
- 3 min read
Death Trap
Chaz Maviyane-Davies
Digital Print, 2025
Cambridge, MA
When Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, they killed approximately 1200 people—both civilians and soldiers—and around 250 men, women, and children were taken hostage. This crime against humanity horrified much of the world. Israel’s intense
counterattack was often justified as Israel’s right to defend itself. But as killing Palestinians seemed more important than releasing the Israeli hostages, and as the
death toll of Palestinian civilians rapidly escalated into the tens of thousands, the specter of genocide was raised.
Genocide is one of the most loaded words around. Israel was created because of genocide. This term polarized an already polarized movement in the US and abroad.
To accuse Israel of committing genocide seemed blasphemous. Those who used the word were often labeled antisemitic. . . even when. . . or especially when. . . they were Jewish, including hundreds of rabbis.
Although Palestinians and activists have been screaming GENOCIDE for more than a year, Most Western politicians and academics have denied the label. In November 2023, Omer Bartov, an Israeli-American historian who is considered a leading authority on genocide, wrote that he believed “there is no proof that genocide is currently taking place in Gaza.” However, at the same time he admitted: “In justifying the assault, Israeli leaders and generals have made terrifying pronouncements that indicate a genocidal intent.”
Finally, in July 2025, after Israel had killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, including 17,000 children, and destroyed hospitals, universities, housing, and most of the infrastructure, Bartok called it for what it is, genocide. He also said that to continue to deny the genocide “is a threat to the very foundations of the moral order on which we all depend.”
This week, two leading human rights organizations based in Israel, B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights, also accuse Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and that the country’s western allies have a legal and moral duty to stop it.
Starvation is a weapon of genocide. Israel created a famine to starve Palestinians in Gaza and the United States enabled it by providing the funding and weapons.
One in three people in Gaza is going without food for days at a time.
At least 170 Palestinians, more than half of them children, have starved to death. According to the World Health Organization, 86 malnutrition-related deaths occurred in July alone, including many children under five.
According to UNICEF, as of July 2025, over 320,000 children, the entire population under five in the Gaza Strip, are at risk of acute malnutrition, with thousands suffering from severe acute malnutrition, the deadliest form of undernutrition. Nearly 17 out of every 100 children under the age of 5 in Gaza City are acutely malnourished.
Two-fifths of pregnant and breastfeeding women were deemed acutely malnourished in June.
And these figures worsen daily. According to today’s Guardian, “More people in Gaza died of starvation in just over 11 days [July 20 to July 30] than in the previous 21 months of conflict.”
In January this year, the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation was formed to replace all other organizations distributing humanitarian aid in Gaza, primarily the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and the World Food Programme (WFP). Not only were the distribution points established in war zones, but those seeking food were often shot. Starvation became a
weapon of genocide. According to the United Nations, Israeli forces have killed more than 1,373 aid-seekers in Gaza since late May – and more were killed this week.
U.S. tax-dollars are paying for this. Our tax-dollars pay for Israel’s weapons and for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. We are complicit in this genocide. We are complicit in this famine. It must stop. Call and write your Congresspeople. Demonstrate. We must do everything we can to stop it.
References:
Slither io is like a snake “party”: eat a lot to grow fast, avoid strong enemies, and enjoy the moment you turn into a “giant snake” that the whole map has to avoid.