On Sunday, Israeli soldiers opened fire on a crowd of hungry Palestinians who rushed a food convoy as it entered Gaza, leaving at least 94 dead, and 150 wounded. Here’s how one witness described it:

“Suddenly, tanks surrounded us and trapped us as gunshots and strikes rained down – we were trapped for around two hours,” said Ehab Al-Zei, who told the Associated Press that he hadn’t eaten bread in 15 days. ”I will never go back again. Let us die of hunger, it’s better.”

The dead and wounded, we are told by Israel’s military, were hit by “warning shots.” A day earlier, on Saturday, they killed 32 Palestinians at another food station.

The use of live ammunition to gun down unarmed people seeking food has become routine. Before the weekend’s slaughters, the United Nations estimated 875 had been killed while trying to secure food as of June 15.

This is heartbreaking stuff, and not just for the Palestinians. It’s heartbreaking for many Americans to watch Israel lose its soul like this.

This is a country that was once easy to admire, a safe haven for Jews, finally, and a heroic story of survival against the odds. It was a country that tried, for a time, to find a path towards peace. Americans in both political parties offered fulsome support.

What happened to that Israel? Now, children in Gaza are starving to death, and the few hospitals that have survived the bombings don’t have enough medicine to treat the of flood of wounded civilians. Palestinians are forced to move, again and again, pitching tents amid the rubble as they dodge Israeli bombardments.

It is a campaign that former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert describes as “indiscriminate, limitless, cruel and criminal killing” of civilians. Should we dismiss him as antisemitic?

How about the actor Mandy Patinkin, whose voice broke as he pleaded in anguish with his fellow Jews to stop this rampage? “How could it be done to you and your ancestors — and you turn around, and do it to someone else?” he asked.

Like many Americans, I’ve had it. Each year, Gallup polls show that Israel is driving away more of us, especially among Democrats, who are now three times as likely to sympathize with Palestinians as with Israelis. Among all Americans, just 46 percent now say they sympathize more with Israel, a record low.

The ferocious tactics in Gaza ensure that number will keep dropping. The Netanyahu government has turned Gaza into a hellscape that looks like Hiroshima in 1945, leaving more than 60,000 dead, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, more than half of them women and children. Will this continue until every last Hamas fighter is killed or flushed from the tunnels?

This has gone way past self-defense. Netanyahu’s defense minister, Israel Katz, has ordered bulldozers to prepare a camp in southern Gaza that he says will eventually confine all 2.1 million Palestinians in the strip, with no option to leave unless another country takes them in.

“If people want to stay, they can stay, but if they want to leave, they should be able to leave,” Netanyahu says. “We’re working with the United States very closely about finding countries that will seek to realize what they always say — that they wanted to give the Palestinians a better future.”

There is a term for this: ethnic cleansing. And Netanyahu’s talk about free choice is thin gruel when he’s doing all he can to make life in Gaza unbearable.

If this is self-defense, how do we explain the record expansion of Jewish settlements on the West Bank since Oct. 7, and the violence against Palestinians there, who played no role in the attack? According to the United Nations, 964 West Bank Palestinians have been killed by soldiers and settlers since Oct. 7, with nearly 3,000 homes bulldozed. Earlier this month, 15 cabinet members signed a petition calling for the outright annexation of that territory.

No, this is not self-defense. This is driven by a far-right dream to establish direct Israeli rule from the river to the sea.

I miss the old Israel. Under Olmert in 2008, and under Prime Minister Ehud Barack in 2000, Israel offered meaty concessions in search of a two-state solution, including ceding West Bank territory and dismantling some settlements. The Palestinians turned them down, an epic failure of leadership. They blew it again when they elected Hamas to run Gaza after Israel unilaterally withdrew in 2005, dismantling 21 settlements there.

But Israel has changed. A two-state solution is off the table, West Bank settlements are expanding at a record pace, and Israelis overwhelmingly support the brutality in Gaza. A recent poll from Pew Research Center found that 39 percent of Israelis say the response has been “about right” and another 34 percent believe it has not gone far enough.

For now, Israel is in no danger of losing its lifeline to America. The discontent that’s showing up in polls has not reached the halls of Congress, beyond progressive figures like Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has called for an end to military aid.

But Democratic voters are peeling off in large numbers, and so are young people in both parties. We are witnessing a moral abomination. The sooner we end our support for it, the better.

Moran is a national political columnist for Advance Local and the former editorial page editor/columnist for The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. He can be emailed at [email protected].