“But again, what does that actually mean?” You could stop the bombing and keep the blockade, and 50,000 people in Gaza would die in the coming weeks, he said. “Cease-fire” is functioning as a slogan, he said, and so instead APN has called for cessation of hostilities, a release of hostages, and humanitarian aid. On Thursday, APN sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken asking that fuel in particular be allowed to be supplied via the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, since humanitarian assistance is essentially worthless without it.
In comparison to these liberal organizations, America’s leftist Jewish groups have a different message: They are calling for a cease-fire specifically. So too are Palestinian-led groups, like the Adalah Justice Project. To them, a cease-fire—not a pause to bring aid in, but the cessation of hostilities—is the only just thing to be done at this point.
“If Palestinians are going to be killed by Israeli bombs, it doesn’t matter how much food they have in their bellies,” said Yousef Munayyer, a Palestinian American writer and analyst. “More than that, the people who are arguing for a so-called humanitarian pause, whatever in the world that means, are doing so because they believe there’s some kind of military solution to this.”