Since October 7, 2023, the world has watched in horror as Gaza has become a graveyard—of homes, of schools, of hospitals, and of humanity. Under the pretence of self-defence, Israel’s ongoing military effort has exposed a ruthless campaign of war crimes, collective punishment, and ethnic cleansing. What we are seeing is a genocide, not a conflict. Furthermore, the silence or inaction of international legal institutions signals the collapse of international law as a mechanism of justice, particularly for the oppressed.
A WAR ON CIVILIANS, NOT MILITANTS
Israel has bombarded schools, mosques, ambulances, hospitals, and refugee camps in the name of fighting Hamas. According to numerous independent sources, including the United Nations and human rights organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, the majority of those killed in Gaza have been women, children, and civilians. More than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed, and over 70% of them are women and children.
The level of destruction is unprecedented. Entire communities have been levelled. Journalists have been killed while reporting. Medical personnel have been targeted. More than 70% of Gaza’s dwellings are either destroyed or severely damaged. Israeli soldiers have not only bombed but also attacked hospitals that are protected by international law, leaving patients to perish, doctors detained, and medical infrastructure destroyed. These are intentional military tactics intended to render Gaza uninhabitable, not unintentional “collateral damages.”
GENOCIDE IN REAL TIME
This is not hyperbole—it is genocide, as defined by the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948). Article II of the Convention states that genocide includes acts committed with the intention to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, including killing members of the group or inflicting conditions calculated to bring about its physical destruction.
Israel’s siege of Gaza, its mass bombings, forced starvation, and displacement of nearly 2 million people—combined with open genocidal rhetoric by Israeli officials—meets every threshold of this definition. From Israeli politicians suggesting a permanent relocation of Gaza’s people to Egypt’s Sinai to former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant referring to Palestinians as “human animals,” the goal is unmistakable: to exterminate Palestinians from their land and from history.
When children are pulled from rubble with their limbs missing, when premature babies die because incubators have no power, when entire families are wiped off the civil registry—these are not accidents of war. This is annihilation.
INTERNATIONAL LAW: A BROKEN PROMISE
The world used to think that the atrocities of the Holocaust and the two world wars would never happen again. Justice, accountability, and deterrence were the goals of the establishment of organisations such as the United Nations, the International Criminal Court (ICC), and the International Court of Justice (ICJ). But Israel’s repeated and escalating war crimes have exposed these institutions as ineffective—or worse, complicit through inaction.Despite mountains of evidence, Israel has never faced real accountability. It continues to act with impunity, shielded diplomatically by Western powers like the United States, who have vetoed numerous UN Security Council resolutions demanding a ceasefire. Even the most basic humanitarian resolutions are blocked under the pretext of Israel’s right to self-defense, while millions of Palestinians are denied their right to live. When the ICC considers issuing arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, the U.S. Congress threatens and intimidates them. When South Africa filed a case at the ICJ accusing Israel of genocide, the Western media dismissed it as political theatre. But if not now, when?
If the killing of over 15,000 children, the bombing of hospitals, and the use of starvation as a weapon do not qualify as war crimes, then international law is no longer law—it is a tool of the powerful against the weak.
SELECTIVE HUMANITY AND GLOBAL HYPOCRISY
What is perhaps most painful for Palestinians—and for all those who believe in justice—is the sheer hypocrisy of the international system. In Ukraine, the world rallied to defend civilians, punish the aggressor, and hold Russia accountable. But in Gaza, the world debates terminology. Is it merely a conflict or a genocide? Are they freedom fighters or terrorists? Should we demand a humanitarian halt or a ceasefire?
This selective morality dehumanizes Palestinians. It suggests their lives are less worthy, their suffering less urgent. And it teaches the oppressed everywhere a dangerous lesson: you will not be protected unless you are politically useful to the powerful.
PALESTINE WILL NOT BE ERASED
Palestine endures despite everything. It endures in the grief-stricken mother clutching her child’s photo. It endures in the young journalist filming from the rubble. It endures in every chant of “Free Palestine” that echoes across campuses, streets, and hearts around the world. Israel may drop bombs, bulldoze homes, and uproot olive trees—but it cannot bomb away memory, resistance, and the truth.
What is happening in Gaza today is not just a war crime—it is a moral catastrophe. It is the collapse of the values that the post-World War II world claimed to uphold. If the world allows this genocide to continue unchallenged, then the promises of “never again” and “justice for all” are dead letters.
A CALL TO CONSCIENCE
We, the people of the Global South, the youth, the students, and the thinkers, must not look away. The people of Palestine are not just fighting for their freedom; they are reminding the world what the resistance against colonial violence looks like. They are holding up a mirror to a system that has failed them, again and again.
Justice delayed is justice denied. But silence is complicity. Let history record that we did not stay silent.
