A ceasefire does not erase a crime. The silence of bombs over Israel has created an illusion of peace, but in Gaza, the violence continues in a different form. The recent truce, brokered without addressing the core conflict, is a fragile pause, not a resolution. The underlying system of control and domination remains fully operational, its machinery of violence merely idling.
What unfolded in Gaza over the past two years was not a conventional war. It was a systematic campaign of destruction against a civilian population. The evidence is overwhelming: mass casualties, the deliberate obstruction of food and medicine, the wholesale demolition of neighborhoods and vital infrastructure. When state officials publicly declare an intent to make a territory uninhabitable for its people, the language of international law has a precise term for such actions.
This campaign did not emerge from a vacuum. It is the latest, most brutal chapter in a decades-long story of military occupation, systemic inequality, and the denial of basic rights. The tragic violence of October 7th provided a pretext for an escalation of long-standing policies, not a departure from them. It activated a pre-existing framework built on impunity.
A critical failure has been the response—or lack thereof—from powerful international actors. Rather than enforcing the legal frameworks established to prevent atrocities, many governments have offered tacit support or paralyzing silence. This complicity has served to normalize the unacceptable, sending a dangerous signal that such actions can be carried out without consequence.
However, global public awareness is shifting. A growing movement recognizes that this is not merely a distant conflict but a test of our collective commitment to human rights and the rule of law. The regime in question, which enforces separation and supremacy through military force, settlement expansion, and mass detention, must be identified and challenged for what it is.
For the people of Gaza, the ceasefire is meaningless. The genocide persists in the ruins of hospitals, in the trauma of children, in the ongoing blockade that perpetuates starvation and disease. The toll is catastrophic: tens of thousands dead, families obliterated, a society shattered.
To believe the crisis has passed is a profound error. The cost of inaction extends far beyond Gaza’s borders. When mass violence is met with impunity, it dismantles the very foundations of a rules-based international order, inviting repetition elsewhere.
There can be no moving on. There can be no looking away. A lasting peace is impossible without justice, and justice is impossible without accountability. Holding perpetrators responsible is not about vengeance; it is the essential step to break a cycle of violence and to challenge the system engineered to produce it. The future safety of all people in the region depends on this unequivocal demand: that such crimes are never normalized and the systems that commit them are never left unchallenged.