A Year and a Half of Genocide—And Still, No One Stops the Killer

It’s hard to stomach how comfortable the world has become with Palestinian death. It’s harder still to watch how selective the law becomes when Israel is the one doing the killing.

A Palestinian father, mother, and their child were massacred in the brutal Israeli airstrike that targeted the Thai Restaurant and its densely populated area in Al-Rimal neighborhood, west of Gaza City, earlier today.

Israel killed 92 Palestinians today. You likely didn’t hear about it. Maybe it didn’t even make your feed. That’s how genocide becomes ordinary. That’s how we teach ourselves to scroll past slaughter, to normalize the murder of entire families as if it's just noise—something happening “over there.”

Palestinian journalist Yahya Sobeih was killed by an Israeli airstrike just hours after the birth of his first child. He had posted a photo holding his newborn before stepping out to get supplies.

Journalist Yahya Subaih, who had just welcomed a newborn daughter and posted about her hours earlier, was one of the dozens of victims.

Minutes later, two Israeli missiles struck al-Wehda Street in Gaza City—one hitting the Thai Restaurant, the other a nearby intersection—killing at least 17 people, according to Al Jazeera.

One of those killed today was Noah Dawood Al-Saqa, a child who celebrated his birthday yesterday as seen in the video above, calling it “the best day of my life,” only to be killed by Israel just hours later in the restaurant massacre in Gaza City.

Nearly two years into Israel’s assault on Gaza, we are watching a campaign of annihilation, not warfare. This isn’t defense. This is extermination—with Western fingerprints all over the trigger.

The Israeli government, backed openly by the U.S. and its allies, is moving toward full military reoccupation of Gaza. The strategy is clear: bomb what remains, choke what survives, and push Palestinians into ever-smaller, uninhabitable corners. It is not merely military. It is mathematical. It is methodical.

Recent post on X by Assal Rad

For more than two months, not a single grain of rice, drop of water, or dose of medicine has entered Gaza. And yet, the talking points out of Washington and Brussels echo with the hollow refrain: Israel has the “right to defend itself.”

Against whom, exactly? Malnourished children? Bombed hospitals? Bakeries reduced to rubble? Hospitals are collapsing. Children are dying from hunger. And aid convoys are blocked, and still U.S. and European leaders echo empty words about “shared values.”

What values are these?

They told us international law was the bedrock of civilization.
That the world learned from the Holocaust.
That the Geneva Conventions were sacred.
That the Genocide Convention would never again allow extermination to be carried out under the world’s watchful eye.

But in Gaza, the law is not just absent—it’s been co-opted, corrupted, turned into an accomplice. It is not only the buildings in Gaza that lie in ruins—it is the very idea that law protects the vulnerable from the powerful.

An entire population is being starved, suffocated, and bombed and shelled relentlessly, and yet, the world hesitates. Debates. Stalls. As if it doesn’t already know what it's seeing. As if genocide needs better branding to be believable.

Chef José Andrés’ World Central Kitchen has halted operations in Gaza, not because they chose to—but because there are no more supplies left to cook with. They can no longer bake bread. Gaza is being starved on purpose. And yet, the narrative remains fixated on Israel’s “right to defend itself.”

A U.S. ambassador, Mike Huckabee, recently visited the illegal Israeli settlement of Shilo—meeting with settler leaders like Israel Ganz, who is openly calling for the annexation of the entire West Bank. This isn’t just unprecedented—it’s genocidal diplomacy.

Courtesy of Ariel Kahana

In international waters, thousands of kilometers from Israeli borders, this week Israel launched a drone strike against a humanitarian aid vessel, the Conscience, that was trying to deliver supplies to Gaza.

The ship, unarmed and clearly marked, carried passengers from 21 countries, not weapons. It carried people who still believe in the basic principle that starving civilians deserve help. But that didn’t matter. And that didn’t stop Israel from bombing it in the middle of the night.

An SOS call went out, and it was ignored. Two drones struck to send one powerful message: No aid, no witnesses, no resistance. Due to damage and fear of a second strike, the crew attempted to seek safety in Maltese waters—only to be blocked by the Maltese Coast Guard.

“I’m just following orders from higher authorities,” one officer said over the radio.

Malta allowed Israel to use its airspace to carry out the attack and then delayed for hours before dispatching assistance. With this act, Malta has entered the war on Israel’s side, complicit in the crime of genocide by starvation.

This isn’t unprecedented.

In 2010, Israel assaulted a similar aid flotilla, killing 10 people. Back then, Obama blocked UN efforts for an independent investigation.

If Israel can get away with this—executing a lethal drone strike on aid workers thousands of kilometers from its borders in international waters—then no ally of Palestine, anywhere, is safe.

The West Bank, meanwhile, is being emptied. Settler militias and Israeli forces are conducting a joint depopulation campaign. Palestinians are being held at gunpoint in their own villages, while settlers take their land with impunity. This is settler-colonialism in real time. And it's not just illegal—it's state-backed ethnic cleansing.

And then there’s Europe.

In Germany, officials argue that their “reason of state” means they must never deny weapons to Israel. But nearly 80% of Germans oppose military support, and 87% support humanitarian aid for Palestinians. So who is Germany really serving?

In Holland, Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp finally asked the EU to investigate whether Israel is violating its Association Agreement—which legally requires it to uphold Palestinian human rights. But instead of action, all we get bureaucracy. The EU might take years to decide if Israel has breached international law—as if 50,000-100,000 dead Palestinians aren’t evidence enough.

Meanwhile, Dutch universities are brutalizing their own students for daring to protest genocide. At Radboud University, police were called on peaceful demonstrators. One student was mauled by a police dog. Their crime? Demanding that their school divest from Israeli apartheid.

This is the cost of conscience in the West. Protesting genocide is now criminal.

Even in Geneva Israel has registered a fake humanitarian group, the “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation,” to distract from its crimes. This organization will work with Israeli forces and U.S. mercenaries to consolidate control over Gaza—while blocking real aid groups. Also based in Geneva: “UN Watch,” an Israeli proxy that exists solely to smear UN human rights defenders and shield Israeli impunity.

And France? Macron calls the situation in Gaza “unacceptable” and “very critical” yet continues to provide safe passage for Netanyahu—a fugitive from international justice—instead of grounding his plane and arresting him. As if words can offset war crimes.

Israel is not acting alone. It is being shielded, funded, and legitimized by the very governments that claim to uphold human rights.

Journalist Nour Abdo was killed in the second Israeli strike that targeted Al-Karama School in Al-Tuffah neighborhood while he was documenting the aftermath of the initial bombing.

The campaign of annihilation continues to erase journalists. Just this week, Palestinian reporter Nour Abdu was killed in an Israeli airstrike on a school in Gaza City. At least 15 others were also murdered. In total, over 200 journalists have been killed since October—the deadliest attack on the press in modern history. The message is clear: Truth is the enemy, and those who report it are targets.

And yet the Western press continues to offer cover. It clutches false balance while ignoring fact. It sanitizes mass killing. It refuses to even say the word “genocide.”

But the world is no longer waiting for governments to act. People are rising.

At universities. In the streets. Online. Even on the Eurovision stage, where more than 70 former contestants—including the UK’s Mae Muller and Irish winner Charlie McGettigan—have demanded that Israel be banned.

This is the pressure that matters now. Not from politicians—but from us.

We cannot beg the powerful for moral clarity. We must become their consequence. We must confront the corporations, universities, and governments complicit in genocide. We must disrupt and make complicity cost.

Because every delay means more lives lost. More journalists assassinated. More children starved. Gaza is not a war zone. It is a graveyard being expanded by Western policy.

Where is the Fourth Geneva Convention?
It prohibits collective punishment.
And yet, Israel has besieged an entire population—cutting off food, water, fuel, electricity. Hospitals bombed. Aid convoys blocked. Children dying not just from bombs, but from dehydration and hunger. A man-made famine, by design, not accident. And still, the Convention remains a ghost.

Where is the Genocide Convention?
It obliges all signatories to prevent genocide—not after it’s done, but as it unfolds.
And yet, South Africa brings Israel to the International Court of Justice, accusing it of genocide—and what does the world do?

It stalls. It sends statements, not sanctions. It sends condolences, not consequences. The ICJ finds the risk of genocide “plausible.” But Israel doesn’t stop. It escalates.

And those legally bound to act—don’t.

Where is the Arms Trade Treaty?
It forbids states from transferring weapons when they may be used to commit genocide or war crimes. And yet, the U.S. sends bombs. Germany sends submarines.
The U.K. sends parts for fighter jets. All with full knowledge of how, where, and against whom they’ll be used.

This isn’t just complicity.
It’s collaboration.

Where is the International Criminal Court?
For years, the ICC dragged its feet on Palestine. But now—in a rare, courageous move—it has issued arrest warrants for two Israeli leaders, including Benjamin Netanyahu, for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. This should have been a turning point. A line in the sand. A moment where international law reclaimed its purpose.

But what happened next?
The world shrugged.

Netanyahu, a man now wanted by the world’s highest court, was welcomed in Europe and the United States like a visiting dignitary. He got handshakes, cameras, applause. When the ICC targets African leaders, there are sanctions. When it targets an Israeli leader, there are selfies with senators.

So yes, the ICC finally acted.
But justice still limps behind power.

Where is the United Nations?
Resolution after resolution, vetoed by the U.S.—each one a brick in the wall of impunity. Even when 14 out of 15 Security Council members vote to demand a ceasefire, Washington says “no.”

International law, it turns out, has a veto clause. And it speaks American.

Where is the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty?
Israel has nuclear weapons. It’s never signed the treaty. But that’s fine, apparently. Iran can be sanctioned for uranium. Israel gets a wink, a nod, and another multibillion-dollar military aid package. This isn’t a failure of law—it’s a betrayal.

Because the law does exist. It’s codified. It’s ratified. It’s printed on paper with signatures and seals. But it’s not enforced. Not for the colonized. Not for the stateless.

Not for Palestinians.

The truth is: the law doesn’t apply to Israel, because it was never designed to.
Just like it didn’t apply to apartheid South Africa, until it did.

The Flotilla strike was an attack on solidarity itself. It was an attack on the very idea that civilians, anywhere in the world, should be allowed to help Palestinians without risking their lives. If our leaders won’t hold Israel accountable, then we must. If our institutions won’t speak truth, then we must shout it out loud.

If our democracies won’t act, then we must disrupt them until they do.