A genocide has been occurring in Gaza for nearly three years, and many GJHS students are unaware of America’s role.

There are thousands of videos on TikTok showing Palestinian families struggling to survive, living in the rubble of the Gaza strip, an area on the western border of Israel roughly the size of the Grand Valley which has been bombarded by American-funded bombs. On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas, a Palestinian militant group, carried out an atrocious attack on Southern Israel, killing 1200. Since then, Israel has killed over 75,000 Palestinians in Gaza, with the estimated number being potentially far higher.

Many of those Palestinians in Gaza are just like us. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, nearly half of Gaza’s population is under the age of 18.

Nurse Katy Brown, wife of GJHS English teacher Steve Brown, visited Gaza on multiple occasions before Oct. 7 to provide medical aid to children in Gaza. “The kids we specifically were working with had some pretty significant medical needs, and the families loved them just like I see here in Grand Junction,” Brown said.

According to congress.gov, Israel has received over $174 billion from the United States since its creation in 1948 (over $300 billion when adjusted for inflation), making it the all-time largest recipient of American “aid” by a longshot.

Much of that money has been used for pure evil, simply with the goal of making Israel the strongest country in the Middle East and allowing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corrupt government to ethnically cleanse the land of Palestine.

While it has been a decades-long conflict, which some consider simply a massive disagreement between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs, this is merely propaganda created to convince Americans that it is far more “complicated” than it truly is. The fact is that nearly 80,000 civilians, mostly women and children, are dead at the hands of Israel and the United States. It has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with control.

It is nearly impossible for the civilians of Gaza to escape the closed borders of the Gaza strip. Similarly, it is nearly impossible for anyone to get in to provide aid. According to Brown, in order to be permitted to enter Gaza to provide aid, her group had to “apply” through the Israeli government months earlier, and a permitted aid worker she was with was still denied entry at the border, along with other workers as well. In the years following Brown’s aid missions to Gaza, this has only gotten worse. In an April 2024 drone attack, Israel deliberately targeted and killed seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen, one of whom was a dual Canadian-American citizen according to the BBC. Netanyahu claimed that the act was “unintentional,” but multiple similar events have occurred as well. Additionally, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) has opened fire on large gatherings of food-seeking Palestinian civilians at aid sites on numerous occasions, which United Nations personnel and the Human Rights Watch have acknowledged as war crimes.

While a ceasefire was announced in October 2025, which President Donald Trump claims to be responsible for facilitating, this may as well not exist Israel has reportedly violated it over 2,000 times according to Aljazeera.

A significant part of Israel’s power over American politics comes from the massive amount of money it pours into our candidates. The American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is one of the largest donors to American politicians, including both of our Colorado senators. Combined with similar pro-Israeli groups, Israel has one of the strongest lobbies in US politics, resulting in massive pro-Israeli overrepresentation in congress.

It is hard for us as Americans to comprehend what it is like for those in Gaza who face famine and death every day. However, the least we can do as high schoolers is to be aware. At the time of publishing this, most of us will be of voting age during the 2028 presidential election, and a large portion of upperclassmen will be of voting age during the 2026 midterm elections as well.

We must not vote for Israeli-lobbied politicians if we want anything to change, no matter their party, and we must acknowledge our own country’s contributions to the atrocities committed toward the Palestinian people.