Genocide in Palestine

With the world diverted by the Iran War and despite the Gaza Peace Plan, Israeli genocide in Palestine continues. Since Israel started its Gaza massacre in October 2023, at least 73 thousand Palestinians have been killed and 173 thousand have been injured. Thousands of others have been imprisoned or are missing. Even worse is the deliberate targeting of Palestinian children which has been documented by the UN's Independent International Commission on the Occupied Palestinian Territories in a report entitled "The Essence of Childhood". The report, released on 18 June, maintains that till October 2025, Israeli forces have killed over 20 thousand children and injured 44 thousand. Additionally, Israeli forces have used torture, rape, gender-based violence, inhumane and degrading treatment, incommunicado detention and arbitrary arrests against children, while unknown numbers have been buried in mass graves and others that have simply disappeared. Children's hospitals, schools, orphanages, refuge shelters and food distribution camps have also been attacked.

The Israeli canard that these juvenile casualties are "collateral damage" is exposed by several specific incidents highlighted in the report: a 10-month-old baby was shot through the head inside a tent by a quadcopter mounted sniper rifle while being fed by his mother; a 4-year-old girl was shot in the head by sniper fire while she was eating with the family in their tent; a 10-year-old boy was shot several times and left bleeding to death; another boy, holding a white flag, was deliberately shot thrice; use of children for target practice by shooting at their different body parts; and, of course, the infamous case of Hind Rajab, whose cellphone pleas for help, while shot and trapped in a burning vehicle with her family, were mowed down by gunfire which also killed rescue workers that rushed to help her. Such bestial atrocities are compounded by industrial level carnage, using aerial bombardment, heavy artillery and precision-guided munitions on residential areas to maximise casualties, especially of children, even as Israelis gather on vantage points and cheer the destruction being unleashed.

These pre-meditated war crimes specifically against children are part of the genocidal Zionist objective of Prime Minister Netanyahu and allies of his Likud party to exterminate present and future generations of Palestinians so that the very idea of a Palestinian state dies with them. The report quotes Nissim Vaturi, Deputy Speaker of the Knesset, as saying: "Do not leave a child there – so that they will not have a resurrection." Another Knesset Member, Hanoch Milneidsky, said: "You will die, your children will die, your grandchildren will die – there won't be a Palestinian State." Yet another Likud party leader, Moshe Feiglin, claims: "Every child in Gaza is the enemy. We need to conquer and colonize Gaza and not leave a single child there."

Unfortunately, this UN report has not caused a ripple in western capitals that champion human rights nor have Muslim countries raised any alarm. Similar inaction has greeted the decision of the International Criminal Court that indicted Netanyahu for crimes against humanity and war crimes. South Africa's case at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of violating the genocide convention has been ongoing since late 2023 without any progress. And the Security Council's Gaza Peace Plan has been effectively derailed by Israeli atrocities. Indeed, when it comes to Israel, the entire UN System has been made redundant and international law has become irrelevant due to American pressure.

Palestine will not be the end of the Zionist project, sanctified by the religious myth of the "Chosen People" inhabiting the "Promised Land", because Netanyahu's Greater Israel stretches from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. The origins of such an ethno-nationalist supremacist state emerge from a "Faustian" bargain, the Balfour Declaration of 1917, when European Zionists, funded by rich Jews like the Rothchilds, Montagus and Sassons, paid off Britain's First World War debt in return for their settlement in Palestine. Nazi extermination of the Jews during the Second World War expedited this process for a Jewish state which, according to the UN plan, was to co-exist with a Palestinian state. However, Zionist terrorist groups like Irgun, Haganah and the Stern Gang, whose leaders such as Begin, Shamir and Sharon went on to become Israeli leaders, opposed this plan and bombed the British Military headquarters in the King David Hotel, assassinated the UN mediator Count Bernadotte and massacred thousands of Palestinians such as in Dier Yassin, to force their expulsion – the 'Nakba', which still continues through Israeli atrocities and settler colonialism.

By repeatedly invoking the Nazi Holocaust and exploiting western guilt for letting it happen, apart from leveraging American domestic and geopolitical interests, Israeli Zionist leaders have gained a licence to perpetrate their own "Holocaust" in Palestine, while any criticism of their actions has been denounced as "anti-Semitism". But, even prominent Jews like Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt, Primo Levi and Noam Chomsky have equated these Zionist fascists to the Nazis.

Moreover, the claim of Holocaust-induced victimhood is neither unique nor exceptional. Several western empires are guilty of holocausts against the indigenous populations in their colonies from the Americas to Africa to Asia. The fact that Hitler has been singled out for condemnation is because he targeted white Europeans rather than coloured people. As George Orwell said in 1945 "the Palestinian issue is a colour issue."

Consequently, Netanyahu has been emboldened to reject a Palestinian state and intensify the genocide against them while involving America to destroy Iraq, Libya, Lebanon and Syria and attempting to do the same in Iran. Unless these Zionists are stopped by force, they will devour the entire region to create a greater Israel.

Muslim countries need to recognise this threat. The real enemy is Israel, not Iran. To contain Israel and help the Palestinians, collective action amongst Muslim nations is required.