WHILE other news, both domestic and foreign, compete for people’s attention, we should not forget that one of the most brutal massacres of the modern age, perpetrated by one of the world’s most powerful military machines, continues in the Gaza Strip against a starved and terrorised civilian population. Since Oct 7, Israel has been doing in Gaza what it has always been doing to the Palestinian people since the Nakba, but in more concentrated fashion. The torture, murder, humiliation and pillage the Arabs of Palestine have faced since 1948 — and even before, since the Zionist encroachment of Arab land began in the early 20th century — can be seen in condensed form in what the Israeli state has unleashed over the past 80 days or so in the forsaken Strip. Gaza has become an emblem for the hypocrisy of the ‘international community’, and the complete lack of empathy many of the self-professed global champions of human rights are capable of. They play politics to protect Israel at all costs as Palestinian children cry out in unbearable pain.

Some of this hypocrisy was on display at the UN Security Council, when the world body passed a resolution on Friday that called for the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza, yet remained silent on stopping state-sponsored Israeli violence. As many global bodies observed, the resolution is meaningless: aid will be of little use as Tel Aviv continues to bomb Gaza. This pointless resolution is the result of much hard work by the US, which did all it could to prevent calls for a meaningful ceasefire, and abstained at the time of voting. True to form, Israel dismissed even this watered-down text, reflecting what it really thinks of world opinion. Meanwhile, famine-like conditions loom in Gaza, with the UN’s World Food Programme saying the Strip faces “catastrophic conditions” as its people confront starvation. This is another war crime to be added to the many Israel has already committed against the Palestinians.

Unfortunately, those who are trying to tell Gaza’s story continue to be exterminated; the Committee to Protect Journalists recently said 68 journalists and media workers have been killed since hostilities began. The vast majority of fatalities (61) are Palestinian. Moreover, Tel Aviv has told foreign wire services that it could not guarantee the safety of their journalists in Gaza. The message is clear: whoever dares to report on the misery in Gaza could themselves become a target of Israeli bombs. Yet even the death of 20,000 Palestinians — most of them women and children — has been unable to shake the world’s conscience. The bravery and steadfastness of the Palestinian people can only be commended, while their killers and tormentors have shown they are capable of truly bestial violence.

Published in Dawn, December 25th, 2023