On February 4, the Belfast Democratic Party caucus approved a resolution calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.

The vote came six days after an Associated Press poll that found that 50% of all Americans, and 63% of Democrats, support a Gaza ceasefire, with only 31% of Americans opposed to it. The same poll found that only 31% of Americans, and only 46% of Democrats, support President Biden's handling of the Gaza crisis.

Like much of the world, many Americans are appalled by Israel's wanton killing of more than 27,000 Gazans and more than 11,000 Gazan children, and the wounding of 66,000 more Gazans.

As the Belfast caucus resolution states, Israel has attacked and destroyed hospitals, schools, mosques and refugee camps. Israel urged residents of northern Gaza to go to southern Gaza - and then attacked them there. Israel has destroyed thousands of buildings. It has assassinated medical workers and journalists. Israel is allowing in little or no aid, forcing doctors to perform surgery and amputations without anesthesia, and forcing Gazans to eat grass and drink polluted and contaminated water just to say alive.

It is time for all politicians, Republican and Democrat, to wake up. Americans are turning against Israel's collective punishment of Gaza's 2.3 million inhabitants.

The message is clear: stop the indiscriminate killing of Gazan men, women and children. Stop the collective punishment. Stop the slaughter. Stop it now.

Lawrence Reichard lives in Belfast