Zone of Dehumanization

What kind of society watches as children are stripped of their right to exist?

There are moments in history so drenched in cruelty that the world continues to bear witness to a full-scale genocide of Palestinians. It is no longer just a humanitarian crisis but a situation where children are stripped of their right to exist.

And most damning of all, some are openly calling for it, even validating the language of genocide.

Across social media, television panels, and official platforms, there have been deliberate, public, and unapologetic statements endorsing or justifying the mass killing of Palestinian civilians, including children.

In May 2025, former Knesset member Moshe Feiglin appeared on television to declare:

"The enemy is not Hamas, nor is it the military wing of Hamas... Every child in Gaza is the enemy. We need to occupy Gaza and settle it, and not a single Gazan child will be left there. There is no other victory.”

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich also stated that Gaza should be “entirely destroyed" and its population displaced.”

Meanwhile, the global silence is complicit.

In this era of performative empathy and filtered outrage, the Palestinian child remains the exception. They are unmourned, unnamed, and unprotected. They die by the thousands, and yet the world hesitates. The same world that rushes to condemn the loss of life elsewhere with full-throated solidarity now stammers, equivocates, or worse—cheers.

To see children pulled from rubble, to hear them scream for water and parents they will never see again, and then to defend the bombs that fell. All this indicates a collapse of conscience.

But there are shareholders behind the bombs.

Behind the razed schools and targeted hospitals, there are military contracts and defense budgets.

The calculated inaction of global powers to veto repeated UN Security Council resolutions calling for a ceasefire and an investigation to hold accountable those responsible for war crimes in Gaza speaks volumes.

Countries supportive of the genocide have stepped back from the resolution of the UN Human Rights Council and the International Court of Justice that affirm the rights of Palestinians under occupation.

International humanitarian law is unequivocal: civilians must never be the target of war. The Geneva Conventions, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and various protocols that bind the global community all assert the absolute right of children to protection, education, and dignity even in times of armed conflict.

No civilization in the world allows this to happen again, and again, and again.

There is no moral high ground in celebrating or defending the deaths of children.

It takes courage to say, Stop. Stop killing children. Stop justifying the massacre of civilians.

If there is any measure of humanity left, it must be measured in how the global community responds when the most vulnerable are being crushed with impunity.

This is one of those moments.