The decision to commit genocide and public killing in Gaza

It's as if Gaza has become a permanent scene for emotional outrage, while the world merely stares. For 21 months, condemnations and appeals have poured in from countries either complicit in the war of extermination, complicit in the conspiracy, or complicit in their silence. Hunger in Gaza is neither a passing phenomenon nor a temporary phenomenon; it is a systematic policy and a weapon directed against the Palestinians.

The humanitarian situation is catastrophic. Hunger has become the norm, and famine is spreading like wildfire through the human stubble. When hunger turns into famine, we are faced with a full-fledged war crime and a stain on humanity. Everyone in Gaza feels hungry, but it's not a passing sensation; it's a deadly reality. People are literally dying of hunger, amid a combination of disease, neglect, siege, and isolation. The pain is no longer in the bombing or displacement, but in the silence of empty stomachs.

Yesterday, the United Nations Population Fund reported that approximately 55,000 pregnant women in the Gaza Strip, 11,000 of whom are at risk of starvation, are expected to give birth within the next month.

A mother bitterly recounts: “The problem is with children. When my son says to me, ‘Mom, I’m hungry,’ what do I say? I say, ‘Where will I get it?’ He replies, ‘What do I have to do with it? I’m hungry.’”

A woman says, weeping, "I feed my children water. We eat water all day long." This phrase is no longer a popular metaphor, but an accurate description of reality.

The Gazan body has begun to devour itself. No food can be bought, even if money is available. The markets are empty, and what food is available is delivered to death centers, where people are forced to choose between starvation and death by the occupation's bullets.

Killing by starvation, where the occupying state prevents food from entering, obstructs aid trucks, and imposes a distribution system that summons Palestinians to points resembling mass execution sites. They are required to arrive immediately, without prior coordination, and are forced to line up in inhumane conditions. If anyone deviates from these "instructions," they are killed in cold blood, and the crime is justified as "legitimate."

Skeptics ask brazenly, "Where are the bodies?" The bodies are not lying on the streets, but behind walls, in hunger corridors, and in front of killing centers falsely called "humanitarian aid points."

Hunger doesn't scream, but it kills, and famine doesn't need images of corpses to be believed. What's happening is a declared crime, committed loudly, in full view of the world. This is genocide, not the chaos of war. There's a system operating around the clock: issuing orders, telling soldiers they can kill with impunity, overseeing the starvation mechanism, and preventing food and medicine from arriving. This is precisely the definition of genocide: intent, execution, and continuity.

In Gaza, the Palestinian hides his pain behind a heavy silence. He ignores his hunger to preserve his dignity, convincing himself that he is still human, despite everything that humiliates and shatters him psychologically and physically. He tries to appear normal, just to remain coherent. There is no need to refer to the "Gaza Holocaust," as every genocide is unique in its brutality. What distinguishes this genocide is that it is without secrecy, without pause, and without any regard for the existence of Palestinians as human beings. Crimes are committed openly, without shame, without deterrence, without punishment. There are no hidden orders, because the intention has become the message.

Medical and human rights reports confirm that mass starvation has already begun to claim lives. We have passed the point of no return. Everything was known, expected, and warned against. Yet the crime is being perpetrated in front of cameras and orchestrated from military and political operations rooms.

No one in this world is innocent. Those who "doubt," those who issue false reports claiming that Gazans are receiving enough food, those who stop aid trucks, and those who develop plans for a "food response" instead of stopping the killing are all complicit in the crime.

As for Arab regimes, most of them have normalized the killing rather than confronting it. Moral and humanitarian concepts have disintegrated and become hollow slogans. Solidarity is no longer a moral luxury, but an existential necessity, defending the very meaning of humanity.

Regarding "individual solutions," and reports that some Arab and European countries—which do not recognize genocide—are preparing to bring in aid via airdrops, they are a repetition of failed attempts that have previously cost lives rather than saved them. They do not reach everyone, are not distributed fairly, and are used to polish the image of the occupying state. Everyone knows that the solution is not to drop crumbs on the hungry, but rather to end collective punishment and open the crossings to allow the flow of aid with dignity and justice.

What a world that is not helpless, but rather perpetuates injustice, legalizes famine, and buries what remains of the humanity of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Nothing is more important than saving lives. Israel devotes all its efforts to liquidating the Palestinians. And if this is not the living definition of genocide, then what is? Right now, nothing is more important than saving children and infants from the food and medicine blockade. Everything else comes later.