GENOCIDE IN PALESTINE/ The faces of the victims are the answer to Israel's lies
Israel continues its massacres, perpetrating its violence in the name of God. We must listen to the voices, including Jewish ones, that denounce the truth.
In the days of the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, we are witnessing a staging of anti-truth. Italian and international newspapers, television commentators, and keyboard warriors deny the unfolding tragedy: they downplay the truth, ignore facts, and dispute data. Many politicians, moreover, prefer to remain comfortable and indifferent, without serious analysis or action worthy of the name.
It is no coincidence that UN Secretary General António Guterres spoke of a "moral crisis that challenges the global conscience," and added, "I cannot explain the level of indifference and inaction we see from too many in the international community: the lack of compassion, the lack of truth, the lack of humanity."
And L'Osservatore Romano recently ran a headline, "No famine in Gaza?", featuring a shocking image of a severely malnourished child. The New York Times simultaneously published an article arguing that there is no evidence that Hamas was misappropriating UN aid packages. The decision to assign food aid distribution to the controversial and shady Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF)—which is part of the ongoing problem—is therefore based on a decision that was deliberately false from the outset.
Despite the denialist propaganda, however, authentic journalists are trying to report what is happening. We now have too many painful testimonies reaching us, along with images that make shocking horror visible.
And the moral justification for Israel's massive intervention in the Strip—rescuing hostages from the dangerous jihadist group—has long since fallen by the wayside. The legitimacy of a legitimate counteroffensive has been undermined since the armed forces began targeting not only Hamas terrorists, but also civilians, journalists, and the sick.
Deaths from starvation, lack of healthcare—hospitals were destroyed—or because they were close to military targets prevented the return of prisoners and increased the number of innocent victims. The exponential reduction in food distribution centers, reduced from four hundred to four, became an unthinkable act of collective punishment that did not save lives, but destroyed innocents. Finally, the blockade of medicines and other essential supplies increased the suffering of the people, causing further victims.
For these reasons, two Israeli NGOs (B'tselem and PHRI) and some Israeli historians have begun to speak openly of genocide.
Omer Bartov , author of The Eastern Front: German Troops and the Barbarization of War (Il Mulino 2003), used the term coined by Raphael Lemkin in a well-researched article in the New York Times . “I am a scholar of genocide. I recognize it when I see it.”
Bartov, a professor at Brown University, is a distinguished historian whose studies have contributed to understanding the structurally criminal behavior of the Wehrmacht, a military instrument indoctrinated against the Untermenschen . The scholar claims that military actions were aimed not only at the dangerous Hamas terrorists, but against the entire Palestinian ethnic group .
It therefore reports, in addition to the terrible data on the destruction of Palestinian homes and lives, also some statements such as those of Nissim Vaturi, vice president of the Parliament, who entrusted Israel with the task of "wiping the Gaza Strip off the face of the earth."
Amos Goldberg , who teaches Holocaust studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has also used the term genocide. For the scholar, author of Holocaust and Nakba: Narratives between History and Trauma (Zikkaron, 2023), the appropriate response to the atrocious crimes perpetrated by nihilistic jihadists was grossly disproportionate: the line was far exceeded. The categorical duty of "Never again!" has become a radical "Never again to us!" with all the grave consequences that entails. This is why, for the scholar, the moral imperative today is to listen to the cries of the victims.
In his criticism of the government, Israeli-British architect Eyal Weizman noted that the policy of massive space colonization logically entails the removal of the enemy. Meanwhile, Defense Ministers Israel Katz and Yariv Levin, revealing their cards, have openly spoken of "annexing" the West Bank.
It must be said, however, that the gravity of what is happening is also being fueled by authoritative sources, who possess the actual data. Everyone remembers the Gaza City video released by President Trump and replayed by all the media. Instead of the tragic fate of innocent civilians, it was replaced with a life of luxury for billionaires and celebrities. A similar video, produced using artificial intelligence, was recently shown by Gila Gamliel, an Israeli minister: Gaza without Palestinians.
Two other ministers, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich , were recently sanctioned by the UK for “inciting extremist violence and serious human rights abuses against the Palestinian population”.
Another minister, Eliyahu, had also called for the use of a nuclear bomb against Gaza. Furthermore, everyone is aware of the position of the messianic nationalists, which opposes that of Rabbi Jonathan Sachs. For the ultra-Orthodox, it is a matter of fighting with all means against the Amalekites, that is, metaphysical enemies. Sachs, on the other hand, with great wisdom, maintained that violence can never be in the name of God.
In a toxic context where the opposite is claimed to be moral, the incredible has happened. The American superpower is sanctioning a woman, Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur, who has compiled a detailed report on the war economy and corporate profits.
But what does someone who has an objective view, uninfluenced by opposing propaganda, actually argue?
Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Red Cross, demonstrates with her words and actions that the Red Cross's principle of neutrality does not mean moral neutralism or indolence. Spoljaric states that there are no acceptable excuses or justifications for what is happening in Gaza. Time is running out; catastrophe is imminent. The severity of the suffering has surpassed every imaginable limit.
Every minute without a real ceasefire puts more innocent lives at risk. The level of indiscriminate suffering is now an abomination. Many children are dying because they lack food. Entire families are forced to constantly move without safe places to rest. The dismay of those exhausted and forced to go back and forth without food is indescribable. Therefore, the ICRC president believes this horrific tragedy must end immediately and definitively.
Spoljaric is absolutely right. Everything is collapsing—Gaza's healthcare system, the physical and mental health of women and children, the endurance of the elderly. Risky aid dropped from the sky isn't enough: the starvation siege needs to end with the arrival of massive ground aid of food and medical supplies. In short, we must not confuse jihadist terrorists, enemies of civilization, with the civilian population.
The words of Guterres and Spoljaric, therefore, appeal to everyone's conscience. We can no longer hide. The UN and the Red Cross have a specific weight that cannot be ignored.
In this dark moment, therefore, standing with the real people who suffer and with humanitarian law leads to the end of the anti-truth. It is a decisive choice: existential and historical. We will be judged, in fact, not only for what we have done, but also for what we have not done.
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