Dhurba Giri
The cries of Gaza continue to echo across a deafened world. In yet another night of horror, 23 Palestinians—eight of them children—were killed by relentless Israeli airstrikes, according to Gaza’s civil defence agency. The attacks came mere hours after Hamas signaled readiness to release 10 Israeli hostages as part of ongoing ceasefire negotiations in Qatar. But instead of a step toward peace, what followed was another round of mass death.
Since the war began on October 7, 2023, following a deadly Hamas-led attack that killed 1,219 Israelis, the scale of Israel’s retaliation has reached monstrous proportions. According to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry—whose data the United Nations deems credible—over 57,680 Palestinians, the vast majority civilians, have perished under Israel’s airstrikes. This is not war. This is systematic and large-scale killing of a civilian population: a genocide unfolding in real time.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the chief architect of this devastation, continues to direct the destruction of Gaza with impunity. His government justifies its actions under the banner of self-defense, but the indiscriminate slaughter of children, women, and families taking shelter in medical zones and refugee camps defies any ethical or legal rationale. In Deir el-Balah, 12 lives were snatched away, including those of eight children and two women—struck while gathered in front of a medical point. In other parts of central Gaza like Nuseirat and Bureij, people were bombed in their homes and tents. Even those displaced and seeking refuge in the Al-Mawasi area of Khan Yunis were not spared.
This isn’t collateral damage—it is a deliberate and systematic extermination of a population already trapped under siege, with nowhere to run, no safe zone, and no viable means of escape. The numbers speak louder than any rhetoric: more than 57,000 Palestinians—more than the population of some small cities—wiped out in less than a year.
Netanyahu’s actions fall under the international legal definition of genocide as outlined in the UN Genocide Convention, which includes acts committed with “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” When hospitals, schools, refugee camps, and even shelters are turned into graveyards, one must ask: What is the objective?
World powers, especially those arming and funding Israel, cannot feign ignorance. The silence or diplomatic shielding of Netanyahu’s government by Western allies—particularly the United States—has emboldened a policy of annihilation that tramples human rights and international law.
As Gaza’s children are buried under rubble, and its people face death with each sunrise, history will not forget this silence. The world must call this what it is: a genocide, engineered by Benjamin Netanyahu and tolerated by a complicit global community.
If peace is ever to emerge from this ruin, justice must begin with accountability—for every child killed, for every life erased, and for every voice silenced by this campaign of terror.
