On May 7, a United Nations experts’ panel warned that the world stood at a “defining moral crossroads” as the devastation in Gaza approached the scale of extermination of its residents. “This is one of the most ostentatious and merciless manifestations of the destruction of human life and dignity,” the experts stressed. “While states debate terminology—is it genocide or not—Israel continues its relentless destruction of life in Gaza, through attacks by land, air and sea, displacing and massacring the surviving population with impunity.”
With over 52,000 Palestinians killed, 70 percent of them women and children, and close to 1,20,000 wounded, the world’s most powerful states remain silent—or worse, complicit. Israel’s latest military strategy, codenamed Operation Gideon’s Chariots, aims to seize full control of Gaza Strip. In preparation, tens of thousands of reservists have been mobilised, and strategic military zones drawn across the enclave.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet has approved the new measures that human rights experts say amount to a policy of starvation and forced displacement. These include military-managed aid distribution centres and facial recognition checkpoints that Palestinians must pass before receiving basic supplies. The UN has denounced this as a violation of humanitarian principles and a form of collective punishment.
Gaza today resembles a wasteland. Entire neighbourhoods have been flattened. Hospitals, schools, water treatment facilities, and food networks lie in ruins. The survivors—an estimated 2.1 million—face an abyss of misery, hunger and disease. Nearly half a million people, including the vast majority of children, are facing catastrophic hunger, and the entire population is experiencing acute food insecurity. According to the UN, an alarming 71,000 children and more than 17,000 mothers need urgent treatment for acute malnutrition.
Meanwhile, the healthcare system is hanging by a thread—with hospitals facing mass casualty incidents amid severe shortages of supplies, equipment, blood and staff. The fuel that powers healthcare and water facilities is also being rationed and is running out. Aid, when it arrives, is sporadic, politicised, and often contingent on Israeli strategic objectives. Convoys are delayed, rerouted, or entirely denied access. Meanwhile, the Israeli military continues to target infrastructure and civilian shelters, including hospitals like Al-Ahli, where dozens were killed in a single strike.
The international justice system appears to be failing. Although the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli leaders over war crimes and crimes against humanity, their enforcement remains elusive. The International Court of Justice has ordered Israel to end the occupation, setting a September 17 deadline, but without an enforcement mechanism, the mandate is likely to remain a pipedream.
UN experts describe Israeli tactics as mirroring “documented patterns of genocidal conduct”, citing the mass displacement of civilians, destruction of basic infrastructure, and the weaponisation of food and medicine. The UN genocide convention defines the crime as acts committed with “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”. It includes killing and inflicting life-threatening conditions.
Former EU foreign policy chief and a former president of the European parliament, Josep Borrell, has gone further, calling Israel’s actions “the largest ethnic cleansing operation since the Second World War”. He condemned Europe’s tepid response and called it an active enabler. The horrors Israel had suffered in the Hamas attacks in October 2023 could not justify the horrors it has subsequently inflicted on Gaza, he added.
The new pontiff, Pope Leo XIV, has also added his voice to the suffering of the Gaza residents. “I am deeply hurt by what is happening in the Gaza Strip. May a ceasefire immediately come into effect.,” he said at his first Sunday address at the Vatican.
Any attempt to forcibly displace Gaza’s population en masse, the UN has warned, would constitute a war crime under international law. Yet, such plans continue to surface. Only recently, President Donald Trump suggested turning Gaza into a “riviera of the Middle East” after relocating its Palestinian residents.
Meanwhile, internal pressure mounts on Israel. The 2023 attack in which Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis and took 251 hostages remains a political fulcrum. Yet, families of the remaining hostages—only 24 are believed to be alive—are increasingly vocal in their opposition to Netanyahu’s military strategy, with some reservists threatening to refuse service.
Despite this, international diplomacy remains toothless. The European Union issued only a call for “restraint”. The US, Israel’s closest ally, has yet to withdraw support or impose conditions. Arms continue to flow. Diplomatic protection continues in international forums. The world’s tepid response has cast a long shadow over the legitimacy of international law and multilateral institutions. In Gaza, history is not just being written—it is being erased.
Gaza has become the litmus test for our collective moral compass. It is not merely a humanitarian crisis—it is a collapse of our global conscience. The UN’s stark declaration leaves no ambiguity: the extermination of a people is unfolding in real-time, and the world is watching in silence. The future of international law, justice, and basic human dignity may well depend on whether that silence continues.
For now, Gaza bleeds. And the world looks away.
E D Mathew | Former UN spokesperson, participated in peacekeeping missions in Timor-Leste and Liberia
(Views are personal)