The Israeli government insists that there is no way to fight the war effectively that avoids such large numbers of casualties, and that it is doing everything it can to facilitate the provision of aid to innocent civilians. Are those statements true?
No. If the Israeli government treated the war, as it should, as a guerrilla conflict against a group of fighters, not against the population as a whole, it would make every possible effort to protect and feed civilians in order to separate them from the fighters. That would both reduce casualties and permit vastly more aid without detracting from the objective of destroying Hamas. That has been my position for many months; I am quite certain the US government is telling the Israelis the same thing. Mostly for domestic political reasons, however, Bibi and his cabinet have decided to fight the war in a way that offends world opinion, kills tens of thousands of civilians, and results in a long war and an expensive occupation purely at Israeli expense. Why should America be a partner in that endeavor?
It shouldn’t. The cutoff of weapons that are likely to kill massive numbers of civilians in Gaza without any large offsetting benefits is a good first step.