As the calendar has flipped to 2025, and with the announcement of a cease fire deal last week, Israel’s decimation of Gaza has continued.  Every day, tens of new Palestinian deaths have been reported.  Officially, more than 46,000 Palestinians are confirmed to have been killed by Israel’s military campaign, which has lasted more than 15 months since October 2023.  According to The Lancet, though, that number is significantly underreported, with at least 40% more estimated to have been killed as a result of violence than the official numbers.  By October, a year into the campaign, The Lancet suggests that at least 70,000 would have been killed.

This winter season has been especially difficult so far, with frigid cold temperatures, rain, and winds, from which make-shift shelter is unable to protect Palestinians who have been displaced and whose homes and communities have been destroyed.  More than 80 Palestinian babies have died of hypothermia this winter already.

Medical facilities in Gaza have almost completely been destroyed.  In late December, the World Health Organization stated, “The systematic dismantling of the health system and a siege for over 80 days on North Gaza puts the lives of the 75,000 Palestinians remaining in the area at risk.”  On Dec. 29, 2024, al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza, a ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, was hit by an Israeli missile, further damaging an already debilitated hospital which has been forced to evacuate patients and staff multiple times.  The UN has found that Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system disregards international law.

In November 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as a former Hamas commander (presumed already to have been killed).  The two Israelis were found by the court to “bear criminal responsibility for the following crimes as co-perpetrators for committing the acts jointly with others: the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”

After the swearing in and seating of the 119th Congress, the US House of Representatives passed on Jan. 9 the “Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act” (HR 23), a bill that “would sanction any officials with the court, or entities supporting the ICC, who seek to investigate, arrest or detain any U.S. citizen or citizen of an allied country.”  It is now headed to the Senate, amid opposition by many churches, faith-based groups, and other civil society agencies.

A ceasefire is only a first step.  It will not immediately end the horrible conditions in which Palestinians live.  Israel’s leaders must be held accountable for their crimes, and the ICC is the appropriate body to do so.  Contact your Senators and urge them to oppose this bill, and to allow the ICC to fulfill its function as an independent source of justice, upholding international law, which is necessary to ensure the implementation of a ceasefire.