Palestinians deserve to be heard

After reading “Hospital use reveals the moral high ground in the Israel-Hamas war” (April 16), I had to respond. It seems that Evan Nierman believes that Hamas is responsible for the genocide in the Gaza Strip. I assume he has never been to the Gaza Strip. So where is he getting his data from to claim that Israel is on the “moral high ground?”

Of course, he uses the Israel Defense Force as his source and its claim that “they have killed more than 12,000 terrorists.” I know of no media source that can verify that claim. His comparison with hospitals destroyed by the IDF and hospitals in Israel is laughable.

What is particularly galling to me is that he makes no mention of the 34,000 dead Palestinians, nor the number of women and children killed, nor the number of journalists, nor the number of aid workers. He fails to point out the illegal occupation of the Palestinian people, the blockade of humanitarian aid, the starvation, the lack of medical care and the many other ills Palestinians are suffering. Collective punishment is a war crime. Maybe he is unaware of the ruling of the International Commission of Jurists?

As a human rights activist who was in the occupied territories in 1987, I visited al-Shifa Hospital and witnessed a dedicated medical staff working under difficult circumstances. Today, what has been done to all hospitals in the Gaza Strip is monstrous.

Nierman closes with his perspective on “peace.” Of course, he blames the Palestinians and predicts that peace and a potential two-state solution: “will rely upon a radical cultural change taking place within Palestinian society.” Maybe he is unaware that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has proclaimed there will never be a Palestinian state. I hope in the future that my local newspaper will not publish such a horribly biased op-ed. Please let us read words from the oppressed Palestinians.