On Monday, April 7, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slipped into the White House for a brisk meeting, most likely exchanging latest plans for a Palestine-cleansed Gaza (West Bank, next ), riding high on an additional $8.8 billion from Congress, to stockpile his arsenal in their relentless pursuit of the eradication of an ancient people.

During an impromptu conversation with the press, Donald Trump, off the cuff, opined about the territory’s beautiful seaside location, prime for development, which America would love to hand over to developers.

Friends, behold the twofold faces of madness in all their reckless glory: the butcher and the megalomaniac. Netanyahu’s insatiable quest to erase all Palestinians, not only from Gaza, but also from memory. When Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Israel, Michael Huckabee, recently was asked about his regard for Palestinians as a people, all he unhesitatingly replied was: “They don’t exist.” Nothing more to add, is there. When asked where Gazans would go after their expulsion, Trump replied that “there are a lot of countries who would take them in,” oblivious to the fact that not one Arab nation has expressed the faintest interest in doing so.

Meanwhile, mass slaughtering continues at a rate of nearly 1,000 a week, with tens of thousands at risk. All humanitarian aid has been blocked for now over six week’s running, including food, water, tents, medicines; the new establishment of Israeli “security zones” where no one but troops and tanks will occupy across the now uninhabitable corridor; resumption of carpet-bombing (cease-fire be damned); 2-ton American made bombs continuing to fall unabated, leaving craterous evidence of the unreported horrors they inflict.

Should you ask why we are not made aware of this ongoing brutal ethnic cleansing, the answer is that our nation’s mass media by and large has engaged in a calculated cover-up, Israel having banned all reporters from Gaza, sanitizing any accounts they permit to be released. Remember the adage: “Out of sight; out of mind?”

My fervent prayer is that the burgeoning Hands Off movement will see its way to adopt orphaned Gaza’s surviving civilians, whose death toll already arguably surpasses 200,000, according to the British medical journal, The Lancet. The dead as well as the living implore: “What will it take for you to listen?” As the rallies continue throughout every state, may a Hands Off Gaza and Palestine stand beside the many other indignities executed by Trump.

The ancient story of the first murder, Cain slaying his brother Abel, goes on to tell us that a grieving God calls out to him:

What have you done?

Listen, your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground!

The Rev. Peter Kakos of Northampton is member of River Valley 4 Gaza Healthcare.