The diabolical nature of Israel’s annihlation campaign in Gaza is not simply a war—it is a genocide.
The New York Times shamefully used the headline “Surviving Gaza” this week, insinuating that Gaza is mass murdering and maiming people and children like 9 year old Mahmoud, rather than Israel.
The NYT wants its readers to believe that Palestinians are responsible for the genocide they are enduring — part of a framework of dehumanization intended to convince audiences that Palestinians care less for their own children than other human beings.
The numbers speak volumes: 42 million tons of rubble, obliterated hospitals and all universities destroyed. Nearly 70% of verified deaths from Israel's war are women and children and over 70% of Gaza's infrastructure has been wiped out. This is not about Hamas—it is an assault on the very existence of the Palestinian people in Gaza.
A Systematic Erasure of Gaza
Strangely, while Israeli media openly discusses plans to ethnically cleanse and occupy Gaza— the Western media largely ignores these facts and statements, and the Biden administration denies these facts altogether.
On the ground, the destruction continues relentless. According to Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif, entire governorates are quickly being erased amidst a media blackout.
Rafah Governorate: Completely wiped out; its population has been ethnically cleansed.
Khan Younis: Rendered entirely uninhabitable.
Central Governorate: 30% destroyed, with bombardments ongoing.
Gaza Governorate: 70% destroyed, with the same percentage of its population forcibly displaced.
North Gaza: Entirely decimated, and its land fully occupied.
If you don’t want to believe the Palestinian journalists remaining in Gaza (Israel has killed +191 journalists in Gaza) maybe you’ll believe Israel’s own former defense minister who says Israel is engaging in ethnic-cleansing in Gaza.
“What is happening there? There is no Beit Lahia, there is no Beit Hanoun, [the military] are currently operating in Jabalia and are essentially cleansing the area of Arabs,” Moshe Ya’alon told reporters today.
(Note that even when they openly admit to ethnically cleansing Palestinians, Israelis will still call the native Palestinians Arabs, hoping to further erase Palestinian identity both in rhetoric and in physicality)
Norman Finkelstein, speaking to Piers Morgan, posed piercing questions that revealed undeniable truths that left Piers dumbfounded “If you are at war with Gaza, why are you shooting children in the skull and the chest? Why are you killing journalists, medics, and UN workers? Does that sound like war, or does that sound like genocide?”
Even Romeo Dallaire, the former UN commander during the Rwandan genocide, said it plainly when Yves Engler asked him if it was a genocide. “Yes it is a genocide in Gaza.”
Heartbreaking Losses
The human toll of this destruction is as harrowing as it is incessant.
Today an Israeli drone assassinated Mahmoud Almadhoun, a founder of the Gaza Soup Kitchen. His initiative, which grew from just four pots to feeding 3,000 people daily, is yet another unlawful war crime of Israel’s relentless violence.
“Chef Mahmoud, as he came to be known by the thousands he served daily over the last year, was a lifeline for his community. In addition to cooking wholesome meals for his community in their hour of greatest need, he also supplied critical aid to doctors, hospital staff, and patients at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza,” a statement by UNRWA said.
As one of the last men and humanitarians standing in northern Gaza delivering food aid, Chef Mahmoud was unwavering in his determination to offer hope and support to his community – an area in Gaza largely cut off from humanitarian aid over the last two months by Israel’s military. (In fact, out of the 91 attempts the United Nations has made to deliver aid to besieged north between October 6th and November 25th, 82 have been denied and 9 impeded).
World Central Kitchen (WCK) announced that it has been forced to suspend operations in Gaza for the second time this year, leaving thousands without sustenance, which plays into Israel’s state policy of starving the millions of Palestinians in Gaza.
Hospitals, too, are under constant attack, stripping the vulnerable of life-saving care, guaranteeing a much higher death toll long after the bombs stop dropping.
A three-week-old baby, born prematurely, died of pneumonia because Gaza’s healthcare system has been deliberately destroyed. Thousands of deaths like this one are excluded from official counts but are no less the result of deliberate policies aimed at dismantling Gaza’s capacity to survive.
Starvation as a Weapon
Famine is spreading as countless videos emerge this week showing children scraping food remains from empty pots. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) reports that the food supplies allowed into Gaza cover only 6% of the population's needs.
In case you forgot, the deliberate restriction of essentials like food and medicine is a violation of human rights, and one of the reasons the ICC referenced when it issued arrest warrants for Israel's prime minister and former defence minister (don’t get me started on the number of European countries that are abandoning their commitment to international law to protect war criminals waging genocide)
Hunger is deepening across Gaza as prices of basic commodities rise by more than 1,000% according to the World Food Program. It’s not a famine in Gaza. It is a policy of forced starvation, which is an act of genocide.
Michael Fakhri, Special Rapporteur on the right to food recently said, “One year ago, I told you that food is increasingly used as a weapon against civilians [and] raised alarm over the risk of genocide against the Palestinian people; unfortunately, you did not take any sufficient action.
His predictions of course, have come true: “What the world has learned is that no number of facts, no degree of horror, no amount of death and pain is enough to trigger a global response to starvation or genocide.”
A Global Response is Needed
Amid the horror, hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets worldwide to condemn Israel’s actions, with protests swelling from London to other major capitals and cities across the world. Yet, silence and complicity from global powers persist, as they try to find ways to abdicate their responsibility to prevent this genocide, which makes them legally complicit.
The scale of destruction and the systematic targeting of civilians, activists, and relief workers demand immediate global action. We all must continue to find ways to amplify the voices of those in Gaza, to protest, and to disrupt the normalization of genocide and colonization by demanding accountability from our so-called leaders.
This fact-laced interview between Francesca Albanase and Katie Bursar on Times Radio in the UK was a masterclass in dismantling the disingenuous both-sidesism in mainstream media and exposing its role in manufacturing consent for genocide. She also brilliantly takes the UK and US to task for their complicity in genocide and failure to prevent it.
A Fierce Urgency
History will judge how the world responded to this moment. Silence emboldens oppressors; action fuels hope. Speak out. Write to your representatives. Join protests. Advocate for the oppressed. Your voice matters in this fight for justice. Gaza's children, journalists, doctors, and families need the world to listen—before it is too late.
Thank you ♥️it’s so difficult to summarise this.
Brilliant 👏🏻