Give or take a few bombs, US complicity in genocide remains ‘ironclad’

On Wednesday, May 8, United States Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin became the first senior administration official to publicly confirm that the US government has uncharacteristically paused a weapons shipment to Israel. Over the past seven months, the Israeli military has killed some 35,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip with solid US backing.

Speaking at a Senate subcommittee hearing, Secretary Austin remarked that the pause takes place “in the context of unfolding events in Rafah”, the city in southern Gaza where an estimated 1.4 million Palestinians, including more than 600,000 children, are currently sheltering. The majority of these people were forced to flee to Rafah from other parts of Gaza, in keeping with Israel’s modus operandi of making Palestinians refugees over and over again.