Earlier this year, as the genocide unfolded in Gaza, I began volunteering with various medical organizations that help Palestinians. I went on a mission to the occupied West Bank and remotely supported medical professionals in Gaza. I have taught and mentored Palestinian children, supported groups providing health care to pediatric and geriatric patients with cancer, chronic disease, and dementia, and led research collaborations on disease and injury patterns in Gaza and the West Bank.

What I write below is based solely on my opinions and experiences and does not reflect the position of any organization I have been involved with.

My work in Palestine and with the Palestinians has profoundly affected how I view American domestic politics and how I will vote in the upcoming presidential election.

If there is one main takeaway from my work and my recent mission to Palestine this summer, it is that reported Israeli crimes are only a small fraction of what is actually happening. Many go undocumented because cameras and phones are taken or destroyed, or victims fear reprisals in the form of direct violence or collective punishment if they speak out.

It is truly almost impossible to conceptualize the extent of the structural and physical violence inflicted on this population every day and the ingenuity of the crimes committed against them.

Palestinian life is disrupted and sequestered by hundreds of permanent and temporary checkpoints that dot the occupied West Bank. They can prevent Palestinians from going to school or work, stop trucks carrying goods, including perishable food, from reaching their destinations and prevent the transport of people in urgent need of medical aid. The Palestinian economy is fully dependent on the Israeli authorities, who often make decisions that suppress or bankrupt Palestinian businesses.

Israeli soldiers regularly attack Palestinian towns and villages in the occupied West Bank, breaking into homes, arresting Palestinians and sometimes killing civilians. In addition, Palestinian homes, land, and other property are attacked, destroyed, and confiscated by Jewish settlers protected by the Israeli military.

Violence against children is also a daily occurrence. Israeli troops have targeted Palestinian children during their regular attacks on the occupied West Bank, killing 165 in the past year. Many are also detained and abused, including sexually, by Israeli soldiers or detention center staff. The Palestinian children I met told me about Israeli soldiers stubbing out their cigarettes on their arms, cheeks and other parts of their bodies.

In Gaza, the horrors are even more unspeakable. The current official death toll of over 43,000 in no way reflects the true scale of human suffering and death. What this number does not capture are the deaths and injuries or life-altering conditions to which Palestinians are now susceptible due to Israel’s restrictions on food, basic medical supplies such as sterile supplies and antibiotics, and much-needed medicines for the sick chronicles. This environment of uncontrollable infection and malnutrition is also a death sentence for many pregnant women and their babies. This is effectively equivalent to preventing births, which constitutes the crime of genocide.

Amid the total dehumanization of Palestinians by Israel, but also by its allies in US politics and media, many Americans feel detached from what is happening in Gaza and Palestine as a whole. But the truth is that Americans are also victims of the American-backed campaign of Israeli genocide.

Dozens of Palestinian Americans have been killed in Gaza and the West Bank. Israeli authorities have arbitrarily harassed, arrested, and beaten Americans and routinely denied entry to American medical missions in Gaza and the West Bank.

Even non-Palestinian Americans have been harassed (myself included), shot and killed. Most recently, 26-year-old Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi was shot dead by an Israeli sniper near Beita, Nablus.

In the West Bank, I observed Americans and other foreign nationals being yelled at by Israeli soldiers, having their passports rubbed against a soldier’s genitalia before being thrown in front of them, and denied entry to checkpoints.

Once, while waiting to pass a checkpoint, I struck up a conversation with an Israeli soldier who told me that he had participated in joint exercises with a police department in Ohio, where he and his colleagues had been taught the procedures on population control and military occupation. to the American police.

It was shocking to hear this, but it reminded me that not only is the United States exporting technologies of violence and death to Israel, but the other way around as well. Violent policing in the US, which disproportionately affects marginalized communities, was shaped by Israel’s experience of colonial subjugation of the Palestinian people.

Indeed, the exchange of knowledge, ideas, weapons, and information supports the dominance of the US imperial structure and the exercise of racial, cultural, economic, and military supremacy in the US, in Israel, and elsewhere in the world.

The Palestinians recognize this symbiosis and see the US as an equal partner in their colonial oppression. An American doctor told me that a patient in Gaza became hysterical when she saw the US flag on his crumbs, and her family had to restrain her so that he could operate on her without anesthesia due to the unavailability of such drugs .

It is time for Americans to also recognize that unconditional US support for Israel is not only hurting and killing Palestinians, it is also detrimental to the American people. The Joe Biden-Kamala Harris administration has done its best to suppress opposition to the genocide at home, demonizing the pro-Palestinian movement and showing disregard for the horrific rise in hate crimes against Arab and Muslim Americans.

Through its actions against international courts and the United Nations, as well as coercion of other states, it actively undermines the international legal order, which threatens to erase the codified concept of human rights. Supporting racist, colonial brutality and crimes against humanity normalizes these atrocities and will inevitably encourage such violence against minorities and vulnerable groups here in the US.

I have been involved and an active supporter of voting “not committed” in the Democratic primaries, hoping that it might push the current administration to change course on Israel.

But the US president and vice president ignored the message they sent to hundreds of thousands of voters earlier this year. As the new Democratic candidate, Harris has gone out of his way to express his unwavering commitment to Israel. She has allowed the ridicule and mockery of Democratic Party voters and organizers trying to raise awareness about Gaza, shut down anti-genocide protesters at rallies, and kicked Muslim Democrats out of her events.

During a town hall event in October, Harris said there are people who care about “this issue,” but they also care about “getting the price of food down.” I am one of those people who care far more about the very real possibility of Palestinian life being wiped out of Gaza altogether than about the price of food in the US.

On November 5th, I will vote against genocide, and I will do so not only with the plight of the Palestinian people in mind, but also with the fate of my fellow Americans. It is an act of love and care and I am quite committed to it.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.