Something seems different now. After 22 months of seemingly endless genocide in Gaza carried out by the Israeli military, suddenly there is a sense of heightened outrage around the world, including from voices that have thus far held off from being more critical of Israel’s actions. The images of starving children in Gaza, victims of a calculated Israeli policy to restrict the entry of humanitarian aid and desperately needed medicine and supplies, have rocketed around the world across the covers of mainstream newspapers and in nightly broadcasts. If there is a defining characteristic of the genocide in Gaza, the most live-documented genocide in history, it is that every time you think you have seen the most horrifying image you can possibly imagine, there is a worse one the next day.
But why is this happening now? Why is it that only now does it seem a critical mass of consciences around the world have been stirred? Have we not seen enough before this? Was the little body of the massacred 6-year-old Hind Rajab, after she was fired at over 300 times, not enough to shock us? Was the systematic destruction of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure, from its hospitals to its universities, not enough cause for alarm? Has the constant stream of images of mutilated bodies of children, courtesy of American-made Israeli-dropped bombs not been enough? These questions should forever haunt us.
This op-ed was published by The New Republic on July 31, 2025. To read more click here
Featured image credit: Shutterstock/Anas Mohammed
