John Buttrick writes from his Vermont Folk Rocker in his Concord home, Minds Crossing. He can be reached at johndbuttrick@gmail.com

When reading accounts of the war in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory, it is a struggle to separate truth from intentional falsehoods, war propaganda, and equivocation.

There are several words and phrases repeated over and over that signal possible intent to deceive. For example; “terrorists,” “security,” “evacuation orders,” “safe zones,” and “human shields,” are words that may be used to justify killed and injured non-combatants. In contrast, “International Humanitarian Law” exposes false narratives, dishonest motivations, and corrupt ethical behavior.

The International Committee of the Red Cross reports that according to International Humanitarian Law, health establishments and units, including hospitals, should not be attacked. This protection extends to the wounded and sick as well as to medical staff and means of transport. “The principle is clear: hospitals are protected, because of their life-saving function for wounded and sick.”

According to humanitarian law, “security” is not a legal reason to destroy hospitals along with killing and maiming the sick, wounded, and medical personnel. Promising security is consoling, but may have great costs.

The principle of humanitarian law is violated as the Israeli military routinely strikes areas of Gaza that it has described as safe humanitarian zones. We are told that the Israeli military is doing all that it can to avoid civilian casualties by issuing evacuation warnings for areas they plan to attack. But aid workers say the fighting makes it difficult to follow those instructions.

“Nobody is allowed to get in or out,” said Sarah Vuylsteke, a project coordinator for Doctors Without Borders. “Anyone who tries is getting shot.”

Jonathan Crickx, a spokesman for UNICEF in the Palestinian territories, described Israel’s evacuation order in northern Gaza as “extremely concerning,” because it explicitly warned that shelters would not be safe and included sites like Kamal Adwan Hospital. It is impossible to evacuate to a safer place.

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In response to justifying acts of war involving hospitals and medical facilities, Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, a California-based trauma and critical care surgeon who volunteered at European Hospital earlier this year in the southeastern part of central Gaza’s Khan Younis governorate, has organized 99 medical workers to sign a letter to the president and vice president describing the results of Israel’s attacks on hospitals and medical transports.

The letter reads in part, “We wish you could hear the cries and screams our consciences will not let us forget. We cannot fathom why you continue arming the country that is deliberately killing these children en masse.”

“These things are all concealed (with false narratives) – the malnutrition, the disease, the displacement, the lack of sanitation, and then the destruction of the water infrastructure. There’s literally no potable water in Gaza,” said the letter’s organizer Dr. Sidhwa. Also, the multi-faith and multi-ethnic group of physicians, surgeons, nurses and midwives said that they did not personally see any kind of Palestinian militant activity at any of Gaza’s overrun health care facilities, contradicting Israel’s justification for laying siege to the hospitals. The content of this letter has been under reported in the media.

It is the doctors’ story on which we must focus, not on seeking to clarify capricious meanings of words such as “terrorists,” “human shields,” “security,” and “safe zones,” and “evacuation.” The measure of the war depends upon attention to International Humanitarian Law and the actual effect on human beings, both on the military personnel and the civilian population.

An example of the effects of the war in Gaza is part of the doctors’ letter: “Virtually every child under the age of five whom we encountered, both inside and outside of the hospital, had both a cough and watery diarrhea. We found cases of jaundice … in nearly every room of the hospitals in which we served, and in many of our healthcare colleagues in Gaza.” The letter adds, “a high percentage of surgical incisions end up infected due to conditions at hospitals.”

Stories like these expose the deceptive reasons for claiming a righteousness of war. They separate truth from falsehood. They tell more about what war does to human beings than about who is at fault: a strong motivation for no more U.S. military aid to Israel and for a ceasefire.