Our greatest prize is for the people of Gaza to reclaim their lives

The ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip has entered its third year. Yet many Western governments, especially the European Union members, still refuse to formally acknowledge it. Instead, they continue their economic and security partnerships with Israel, supplying the weapons that have devastated the Palestinian people.

From the very first day of this extermination campaign, Western officials and their media outlets rushed to adopt the Israeli narrative. When civilians were targeted, massacres committed, and schools and hospitals bombed, they framed it as “legitimate military action.” When children were killed, their bodies torn apart, and entire families erased from the civil registry, they were omitted from news bulletins and newspaper headlines. And when the victims turned into numbers, those numbers were cast into doubt, because they came from Gaza’s own Ministry of Health.

Every effort was made, and continues to be made, to portray the occupier as the victim, to insist that 7 October 2023 was when the story began. But the truth which cannot be ignored is that this story began more than a century ago, when Balfour; who neither owned the land nor had the right to give it away, promised a homeland in Palestine to those who did not deserve it. The British Mandate that followed merely carried out that pledge. Since then, the Palestinian people have moved from one catastrophe to the next. Today, we are witnessing a massacre that has entered its third year; a horror unprecedented in modern history.

The West and its media have deliberately ignored the Palestinians’ century-long ordeal, instead amplifying Israel’s biblical framing: portraying the people of Gaza as “the Amalekites of our time,” deserving of death because they allegedly beheaded children, burned them in ovens, and raped women. These grotesque lies, quickly disproven, were nonetheless repeated endlessly to legitimise the genocide.

Only weeks ago, after famine claimed the lives of women, children, the sick, and the elderly, a slight shift began to appear in some Western governments and media outlets. In Britain and France, for instance, the horrors had become impossible to ignore. Calls for an end to the war grew louder. Newspapers that had once echoed Israel’s propaganda began publishing reports and photographs of starvation and devastation, urging Netanyahu to be restrained.

But this soft change came far too late. It came after the genocide had already been enabled. It was not a moral awakening, but a reaction to mounting public pressure and the flood of international reports documenting the atrocities in painstaking detail. Even now, while shedding crocodile tears and issuing calls for a ceasefire, these same governments continue to arm Israel. Their so-called “sanctions” are token gestures that carry no weight, no real pressure to halt the crimes.

Had this been a genuine shift of principle, a true awakening of conscience, these governments and their media would have taken a firm stand to stop the massacre. Instead, we heard empty words, noise that faded as quickly as it rose, while the lies continued. Their behaviour makes it clear: they are not trying to save what remains of Gaza, a land, but to save Israel itself from the grip of a messianic, blood-soaked leader who has turned it into a pariah state.

October 7th, 2023 marked a dividing line between two orders: one governed by international law, built on the sacrifices of nations and the principle that the right to life is inviolable, and another crafted by the occupier and its backers, who have placed Israel above the law, granting it the authority to decide who deserves to live and who must die.

The so-called international order and all its institutions have been dealt a mortal blow. No attempt to revive them will succeed without restoring justice to the victims for whom these very institutions were meant to exist. How can this system be revived when it lies buried beneath the rubble with more than 70,000 human beings?

For two long years of genocide, no one has managed to stop the atrocities. The world’s contribution has been limited to statements, appeals, and wishes for the bloodshed to end. Only a handful of states took meaningful action, severing relations, imposing sanctions, or filing genocide cases before the International Court of Justice, but their efforts were far from enough. Had 140 nations joined them, the picture today would be different.

The Palestinians have been left alone to face a feral beast that uses every weapon of death, destruction, and starvation. Day after day, Israel escalates its crimes, recently launching an intensive bombardment of Gaza, one of the world’s oldest cities, flattening entire neighbourhoods as its tanks advance to satisfy Netanyahu’s obsession with an illusion of total victory.

The ongoing genocide in Gaza has stripped bare the international community’s hypocrisy, exposing its paralysis in the face of Israeli arrogance and Western colonial complicity led by the United States. It has also laid bare the moral decay of the Arab and Islamic regimes, their shameful submission, and in some cases, their betrayal through political, media, economic, and even military support for Israel amidst the carnage.

While people across the West and much of the world rise up daily in protest, most Arab and Muslim populations are forbidden from expressing even the smallest act of solidarity. In some places, even displaying a Palestinian flag is treated as a crime. The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank has itself pursued activists showing peaceful solidarity with Gaza, silencing and suppressing all forms of protest.

As for the Israeli society that the West so loves to mourn, it openly celebrates genocide. Even those labelled as “leftists” have shown no collective moral sensitivity. The nation has fallen under the grip of a religious current driven by messianic zeal for a “Greater Israel.” Calls for annexing the West Bank, demolishing Al-Aqsa Mosque, and building the Temple grow louder by the day, and dreams of expansion beyond historic Palestine have become part of the political agenda. The recent protests within Israel are not for justice or peace but they are attempts to pressure Netanyahu into accepting a prisoner exchange deal, to save soldiers’ lives, and to rescue a collapsing economy. As the war drags on, Israel’s isolation deepens.

Now, as we await the crucial hours ahead, we pray for the ceasefire agreement to take effect. This is the hope we have been having for more than two years. We also hope there will be guarantees to prevent Netanyahu from manipulating this truce, so that it may lay the groundwork for a lasting end to the cycle of killing and destruction. There is a sense of cautious consensus that this time may be different: Donald Trump, after all, is seeking a Nobel Peace Prize to be announced this Friday. Let him have his trophy.

But our greatest prize, however, is for the people of Gaza to reclaim their lives.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.