Photo: Janaza funeral prayer for 20-day-old Palestinian baby that froze to death in Gaza.
As the world ushers in the new year, 2025, Palestinians in Gaza remain trapped in an unrelenting nightmare where the humanitarian crisis in the enclave has escalated to catastrophic levels, a confirmed staggering death toll of 46,376, including 23,842 lives lost in 2024 alone.
Over 51,925 have been wounded in this period, underscoring the devastating impact of Israel’s ongoing military operations. Rights groups and United Nations legal bodies have sounded alarms, accusing Israel of gross human rights violations and perpetrating genocide.
Siege, starvation, and scorched earth
The tactics employed by Israel have drawn widespread condemnation. A combination of siege and starvation strategies, alongside relentless bombardment, has devastated Gaza’s infrastructure and population.
Documented attacks on hospitals, displacement shelters, journalists, and aid workers have turned supposed safe zones into deadly traps.
Northern Gaza, in particular, has been subjected to a suffocating siege, leaving civilians and fighters alike vulnerable to starvation and displacement—a strategy widely described as ethnic cleansing.
These actions starkly violate international law and fulfil the UN’s Genocide Convention’s criteria for acts intended to destroy a group “in whole or in part.”
The devastation is exacerbated by the destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system, with 34 hospitals rendered nonfunctional and 80 health centres forced to shut down.
The storming and subsequent burning of Gaza’s last major hospital in the north exemplify the targeted obliteration of essential services.
Humanitarian collapse amidst torrential rain
In the absence of functional towns and cities, Gaza’s displaced population now endures torrential rains in flimsy tent settlements. Hypothermia-related deaths are rising as freezing temperatures grip the region.
These conditions are emblematic of the extreme hardship faced by a population already reeling from years of blockade, bombardment and terrorisation.
International inaction and complicity
The international community’s failure to mitigate the crisis has allowed the carnage to continue unabated.
The US ‘ironclad’ support for Israel, including over $20 billion in military aid since the war began, has undermined diplomatic efforts at the United Nations.
The suppression of reports detailing potential famine in northern Gaza exemplifies the complicity of Western powers.
In January 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to prevent acts constituting genocide. Yet, rights organisations, including Amnesty International, assert that the ongoing actions in Gaza constitute a deliberate campaign of genocide.
Arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, highlight the gravity of war crimes committed by both Israeli leaders where they remain fugitives from international justice.
A grim future without lifelines
The ban on the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has severed Gaza’s principal lifeline dismantling critical aid infrastructure that sustains millions of lives.
The General Assembly’s repeated calls for an immediate ceasefire have fallen on deaf ears, with Israeli strikes persisting unabated on a daily basis.
The urgency of action
The genocide in Gaza represents one of the gravest moral and humanitarian crises of our time.
The international community’s inability or unwillingness to hold perpetrators accountable and to enforce meaningful interventions has emboldened the continuation of atrocities.
Without immediate global action, Gaza’s population faces annihilation.
It is imperative that world leaders, human rights organisations, and ordinary citizens including the Muslim ummah amplify their voices and demand accountability and consequences for the Zionist apartheid state.
The path forward must include an end to military aggression, immediate ceasefire, the lifting of the blockade, investigation of war crimes and for the perpetrators to be brought to justice.
Meanwhile a martial plan must be developed for the protection and rehabilitation of Palestinians in general and the people in Gaza in particular, against Israel’s expansionist and brutal occupation.
Israelites, Holocaust and Genocide in Gaza. It’s a strange combination. Perhaps Hitler, in his grave, is musing that
ethnic massacre and pogrom are not his monopoly.