Published: 08:21 AM, 06 July 2025
Ruthless murders in Palestine and the so-called civilized world
The image of a dying baby is universally gut-wrenching. It transcends politics, religion, borders, and ideology. Yet Gaza’s infants—born into blockade, bombarded into trauma, and now starved into silence—have become invisible casualties of geopolitical gamesmanship.
22 thousand babies could die in two days. This is not a hypothetical tragedy. It is a statistical certainty, pending only the apathy of decision-makers and the inertia of international institutions. These children are not militants. They do not carry political ideologies or affiliations. They carry the fragile hope of survival, a hope now snuffed out by the willful denial of basic necessities. It is a test not just of policy, but of our collective humanity.
In moments of moral clarity, history has judged silence as complicity. The Rwandan genocide, Srebrenica, Darfur—each marked by international inaction despite the mounting evidence of crimes against humanity. Gaza is now the next chapter in this tragic book.
Where is the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), a doctrine the United Nations once held high as a bulwark against mass atrocities? Has international law become so ‘toothless’, or so selectively enforced, that it only activates when the victims fit strategic or cultural preferences?
Some nations have expressed “concern,” issued non-binding resolutions, or called for “restraint on both sides”—a morally bankrupt equivalence when one side is a captive population and the other a heavily militarized state with one of the world’s most advanced armies. To call for balance in the face of genocide is not neutrality—it is betrayal.
No nation is above international law, including Israel. Its right to self-defense does not extend to collective punishment, starvation, or the targeted destruction of civilian infrastructure. The bombing of refugee camps, the denial of aid convoys, and the targeting of journalists and medics are all potential war crimes.
This does not absolve Hamas or other militant groups of responsibility for their actions. But we must reject the narrative that condemns violence only when it is wielded by the weak. If we are serious about peace, we must scrutinize the disproportionate force, the occupation, and the decades-long suffocation of Palestinian aspirations.
If Israel claims to be a democracy that respects human rights, then its actions in Gaza are its own indictment. The world’s moral response should not hinge on the strategic interests of powerful nations, but on universal principles of justice and human dignity.
The Global South sees this hypocrisy, and it fuels resentment, polarization, and the erosion of international norms. Human rights are not a menu to be selectively enforced. Either we defend the dignity of all people, or we admit the project of global justice is a fiction.
