This is genocide, not war
The ongoing assault on Palestine is not a war between equals. It is an unrelenting campaign of state-engineered extermination that aligns with the legal definition of genocide under the 1948 Genocide Convention. The victims are overwhelmingly civilians. They include families trapped in collapsing buildings, children struck while queuing for water, and medics buried under targeted rubble.
According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, more than 58,000 Palestinians have been killed between October 7, 2023, and June 18, 2025. Nearly 70 percent of the fatalities are women and children, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) has documented direct Israeli airstrikes on schools, hospitals, bakeries, mosques, and civilian shelters. Fuel, food, and water have been cut off completely during several phases of the military campaign. Entire urban blocks in Rafah, Khan Younis, and Gaza City have been turned into concrete dust. The UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned of an imminent humanitarian collapse in Gaza.
Strikes on ambulances and evacuation corridors have become routine. In December 2023, Israel bombed Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza, killing over 500 civilians in what Palestinian officials described as a war crime. Despite global outcry, the US blocked any binding UN resolution calling for ceasefire.
What is unfolding is not accidental. These are not isolated misfires. The bombing patterns, the targeting of families, the deliberate collapse of civil infrastructure, and the systematic denial of humanitarian aid fit the international legal criteria of genocide. UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese warned in 2024 that there are grounds to believe the threshold of genocide has been crossed.
This is not a conflict. It is conquest without accountability. It is the methodical removal of a people under the guise of defense. And it is made possible by diplomatic shielding and military funding from the West.
A history soaked in blood
The current genocide in Gaza is not the beginning of Palestinian suffering. It is the latest chapter in a long, meticulously documented history of ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and massacre that stretches back to 1948.
The Nakba, or catastrophe, saw over 750,000 Palestinians forcibly expelled from their homes in cities and villages across what became Israel. One of the most brutal moments came in the Deir Yassin massacre. On April 9, 1948, members of the Zionist Irgun and Lehi terrorists stormed the Palestinian village and killed over 100 unarmed civilians, including women and children. Survivors were paraded through West Jerusalem. Many were executed.
In 1982, Israeli forces besieged the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon, allowing the Lebanese Christian Phalangist terrorists to enter the camps over a 72-hour period. Between 2,000 and 3,500 Palestinian civilians were butchered, many of them women and children. The United Nations General Assembly declared it an act of genocide in Resolution 37/123.
The pattern of massacres has continued unbroken. In 2002, Israeli forces bulldozed large portions of the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch reported war crimes, including extrajudicial killings, the use of civilians as human shields, and the obstruction of medical relief.
In 2014, during Operation Protective Edge, Israeli airstrikes killed 2,251 Palestinians, of whom 551 were children, according to the UN Human Rights Council. The Goldstone Report concluded that Israeli forces had intentionally targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure, including family homes, water tanks, and power lines.
This was not an accident. It was doctrine. The Dahiya Doctrine, formalized by Israeli military planners, encourages the use of disproportionate force and deliberate devastation of civilian areas to serve as a deterrent. This policy has been implemented in Gaza repeatedly and without legal consequences.
In each decade, the death toll rises, and the level of international complicity deepens. Yet the world fails to act. The Nakba was not a single event. It is a continuum of violence that stretches from 1948 to the present, from the razed villages of Haifa to the bombed-out camps of Rafah.
Settler terror in the West Bank
In the West Bank, violence is not incidental—it is an expanding network of terror, intimidation, and impunity sanctioned by the state. Israeli settlers, backed by heavily armed military escorts, have unleashed a wave of arson, assault, and property destruction against Palestinian communities.
Human Rights Watch reported in May 2025 that settler attacks on Palestinian civilians increased by 120 percent during the prior year. Homes have been firebombed. Olive groves that sustained families for generations have been uprooted and chained shut. Late 17 June evening, settlers attacked the village of Burqa, setting fire to cars and grazing lands even as children watched in terror.
Israeli soldiers frequently accompany these attacks or arrive too late to intervene. According to B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights centre, in dozens of documented cases, soldiers filmed or monitored settler actions without preventing them. This military protection emboldens settlers.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs recorded over 1800 severe settler attacks since October 7, 2022. Palestinian children have been shot while walking on the street or going to school. Community leaders have been beaten. Fields have been poisoned. Access to farmland has been blocked by new settler roads and checkpoints.
Israel’s legal system reinforces this terror. Out of 310 investigations opened by military police into settler violence in the West Bank over recent years, only about 2 percent led to indictments.
In this crucible of violence, Palestinians live in constant fear. Curfews are imposed arbitrarily. Palestinians are seized on the street. Checkpoints choke off communities. The settler movement emerges not as an irregular fringe but as an organised cohort enforcing colonial control through terror.
The West Bank is not a disputed territory. It is a front in Israel’s campaign of ethnic domination, maintained by forced displacement of ethnic Palestinians, violence, zionist terrorism, and diplomatic indifference.
Children are the first to die
Palestinian children have become the primary casualties of this state-directed extermination. According to UNICEF, more than 50,000 Palestinian children were killed or injured between October 2023 and June 2025. The vast majority were students, siblings, or infants – victims of actions that would demolish whole families at breakfast tables.
Doctors Without Borders reports that more than 2,523 medical staffers have perished, either in hospitals or in the course of civilian duties . These deaths include those of paramedics responding to emergency calls, only to be targeted while trying to save lives.
In a disturbing symbol of collective punishment, UNICEF reveals that over 660,000 children are now out of school, their classrooms reduced to rubble. The loss is not only physical. Mental health clinics report an epidemic of trauma among Gaza’s children. They are hallucinating explosions during daytime naps. They wake up screaming for parents lost under collapsed walls.
Watchdogs such as Human Rights Watch have documented repeated strikes on areas where children congregate, including playgrounds, mosques, and cake bakeries. One strike hit children queuing outside a UN school in Rafah, killing scores. Videos show maimed toddlers being pulled from twisted steel and concrete.
The destruction of family homes has led to mass displacement. Countless children now live in overcrowded shelters with no access to sanitation. The World Health Organization estimates that acute respiratory infections, malnutrition, and waterborne diseases have increased by more than 150 percent among children. Infants are dying in their mothers’ arms for lack of incubators, lack of medicine, lack of clean air.
There can be no justification for these deaths. They are not collateral damage. They are essential elements in a brutal strategy, whether by design or default, to dismantle Palestinian society, one child at a time. The world must register every shattering statistic, every lost childhood, and take responsibility.
The US bankrolls the killing
The United States is the principal architect of this genocide. Its financial and diplomatic backing for Israel is unwavering and unconditional. In 2023, Congress approved $3.8 billion in military aid to Israel, including precision-guided munitions, bunker-busting bombs, and advanced surveillance systems. This arsenal is deployed with lethal effect in Gaza.
Amazingly, this support continues while international observers document war crimes. In April 2025, the U.S. State Department acknowledged credible reports of Israeli forces intentionally striking civilian infrastructure. Yet the White House vetoes any congressional effort to condition aid or even call for an immediate ceasefire.
American diplomats consistently veto or dilute United Nations Security Council resolutions on Palestine. In March 2024, a proposed resolution calling for the protection of civilian infrastructure in Gaza was blocked by a U.S. veto. The message is clear: U.S. military aid continues even as bombs fall on civilian shelters.
This is not an error in policy. It is a conscious decision by Washington. Analysts at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace concluded in February 2025 that U.S. assistance enables Israel’s “indiscriminate bombardment of populated areas”.
Amr Hamzawy, the director of the Carnegie Middle East Program, wrote in his report that despite the deaths of “nearly 50,000 Palestinians and thousands of Lebanese,” the so-called international community has continued to “condone Israeli practices of indiscriminate violence against civilians.” In Gaza and Lebanon alike, entire populations have been targeted, erased, and displaced. Yet the UN Security Council, the very institution “entrusted with maintaining international peace and security,” has remained paralysed—offering no binding resolutions, no protection, and no deterrence. While charred bodies are pulled from rubble, the United States and Western governments flood Israel with “weapons, ammunition, and financial support,” reinforcing the machinery of annihilation rather than halting it.
In November 2024, the International Rescue Committee reported that U.S.-made bombs were used in several documented attacks on schools and hospitals.
At home, the American populace is fiercely divided. Popular protests calling for a halt to military funding are met with political opposition in Congress. Members of both parties block any shifts in policy toward accountability. The consequence is clear: U.S. sovereignty is used to insulate Israel from consequences, enabling impunity.
By underwriting the weaponry, vetoing humanitarian initiatives, and shielding Israel from geopolitical pressure, the United States is complicit in the mass killing of Palestinian civilians. The money flows, the bombs fall, the world watches.
Europe’s silence is complicity
European Union capitals speak in broad moral terms while supporting, funding, and normalizing the violence inflicted upon Palestinians. Their posture is not neutral or hopeful; it is complicit in outsourcing the dirty work of genocide.
In 2024, the EU Parliament condemned excessive civilian casualties in Gaza yet failed to tie its €146 million in annual funding to human rights conditions. Brussels continues to approve dual-use technology exports to Israel worth billions of euros each year. These devices enable air surveillance, military coordination, and drone targeting systems accused of bombing civilian sites.
Germany leads European arms sales to Israel. In January 2025, the German government approved the export of military drones and surveillance aircraft, transactions valued at €250 million, despite documented civilian casualties linked to those systems. Italian and Spanish firms are similarly engaged, selling military sensors and electronic gear.
European media frame Israeli operations as “self-defense.” Public debate is limited; parliamentary calls for the suspension of arms shipments rarely prevail. A 2024 Amnesty International report concluded that European governments are complicit in apartheid by fueling the machine that sustains it.
The continent’s position at the United Nations is just as damning. European UN representatives consistently vote against binding investigations or sanctions. In June 2024, Europe blocked a resolution demanding a ceasefire and civilian protection in Gaza. This passive facilitation is tantamount to endorsement of continued violence.
Europe might hold itself up as a bastion of human rights. On the ground, it is lending the tools, silence, and diplomatic cover that sustain mass extermination. Its complicity is strategic and intentional. Neutrality is violence.
The UN’s hands are tied
The United Nations is meant to be a bulwark against genocide. In this case, it is failing catastrophically. Its legal apparatus is stifled by vetoes, political bargaining, and procedural backsliding that neutralise accountability for Israel and punish appeal advocates.
In December 2023, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. However, the UN Security Council declined to approve any enforceable measures because of threats of a U.S. veto. The Senate in Washington made it clear that unconditional U.S. military aid to Israel would not be jeopardised.
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has documented numerous alleged war crimes, including deliberate targeting of civilians, medical personnel, and shelters. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has consistently called for safe passage corridors for children and pregnant women, only to be ignored.
Despite this, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has not launched a full inquiry. International Criminal Court (ICC) preliminary investigations remain stalled, blocked at political junctures even as mounting evidence is formally submitted by NGOs, field researchers, first responders, and medical examiners.
UN Special Rapporteurs have repeatedly warned of genocide-level activity. Francesca Albanese and Michael Lynk described the actions as “calculated” and “structural”. But their protests disappear into procedural limbo.
The UN is not neutral. It is incapacitated. Its humanitarian staff are risking their lives daily. Yet they are powerless to halt the carnage, to enforce evacuations, or to remedy the siege. Its organisational silence and political paralysis amount to the passive facilitation of the genocide of Palestinians. The very body founded to prevent such crimes has become a spectre unable to intervene.
The lies of the media machine
Global media outlets have constructed a linguistic façade that obscures the reality of genocide. Terms such as “both sides,” “clashes,” and “flare-up” suggest a symmetrical conflict. In reality, there is one genocidal state wreaking devastation on a civilian population trapped under siege.
Western media has served not as a watchdog, but as a shield for Israeli aggression. Phrases like “responding to threats” or “renewed escalation” flood headlines while entire Palestinian families are buried beneath concrete. A forensic analysis by The Intercept of over 1,000 articles from The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times during the 2023 Gaza assault revealed a systematic bias: Israeli voices and casualties dominated coverage, while Palestinians were depersonalized, criminalized, or rendered invisible. The study concluded that these newspapers “presented Israel’s perspective more frequently and more prominently than that of Palestinians”.
Media outlets consistently describe Israeli airstrikes as being conducted “in self‑defense,” rarely distinguishing between combatants and civilians, or highlighting documented strikes on schools and hospitals. Médecins Sans Frontières reported an airstrike so close to Al‑Awda hospital that undetonated munitions were left lodged in medical wards, and staff and patients were killed or wounded while seeking care. The International Rescue Committee documented a strike on December 15, 2024, against a UNRWA‑run school sheltering displaced families in Khan Younis, noting that “at least 20 people were killed” while the building was explicitly in a designated humanitarian zone.
The role of embedded journalists compounds the skew. Reporters embedded with Israeli forces routinely transmit military press releases verbatim, without critical examination. This results in dynamic visuals of missile launches being captioned as “Israel strikes militant stronghold,” while the visuals of civilian deaths are minimized as “possible unintended casualties.” Al Jazeera’s Institute of Modern Journalism observed that embedded journalists were often unable to speak with doctors or civilians at Al‑Shifa hospital, instead relying solely on controlled military narratives.
Investigative journalism that contradicts the dominant narrative is marginalized or labelled extremist. Reports documenting Israel’s use of white phosphorus in populated areas, confirmed by Human Rights Watch, received minimal coverage. Those that delve into births beneath destruction or children begging for water often become viral on social media, yet are not featured in nightly network news.
Visual journalism contributes to the bias. Satellite imagery of Gaza reduced to rubble circulates widely, but the accompanying text often emphasizes civilian deaths as collateral. Analysts are quoted emphasizing Israel’s military precision, reducing the experience of genocide to an inevitable cost of warfare.
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