Reneé Rapp’s June 2024 Them cover story honoring her NOW Award honoree in music status was chock-full of the candid nuggets the star has quickly become known for, from embracing “lesbian” as a self-descriptor to cracking unrepentant jokes about millennials. But in a brief moment of seriousness, Rapp, 24, called her endorsement of a ceasefire in Gaza earlier this year a “no-brainer,” saying it was “the smallest good thing that I could potentially do.”
Reneé Rapp told Them editor Samantha Allen about that moment at the 2024 GLAAD Awards: “For me, it’s something that I care about and talk about in my day-to-day life and hope that my family members, friends, and peers will do the same.” Rapp told Them that she felt compelled as a “cis white girl” to speak out on Gaza, saying, “I know that I’m someone who will be safe, while a lot of my peers and friends will not, right? While people struggling and literally losing their lives in the Gaza Strip will not.”
The Gaza Health Ministry puts the most recent death toll in Gaza at at least 36,600. On Thursday, at least 45 Palestinians were killed by an Israeli airstrike on a United Nations school complex in Gaza being used as a refugee shelter. An Israeli military official claimed they were unaware of civilian deaths; the New York Times reported footage of a mother with her dead child in the “attack’s aftermath.” Analysis from CNN found that the weapons used in the attack were provided by the US.
Al Jazeera reports that according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), as the war stretches into the summer months amidst a dearth of clean water, “there is a real concern that cholera may become prevalent” in Gaza. While President Biden, who has overseen the continued shipping of supplies to Israel, proposed a ceasefire option, it seems unlikely that it will come to pass, with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu seemingly disinterested and Hamas claiming they have yet to receive any such proposal.
Stay up-to-date with the politics team. Sign up for the Teen Vogue Take
