> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.opendemocracy.net/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The devastating simplicity of the genocide in Gaza - URL: https://www.opendemocracy.net/the-devastating-simplicity-of-the-genocide-in-gaza/ - Published: 2026-10-09T16:04:51.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-09T17:21:48.000Z - Description: Israel’s supporters insist that the country’s oppression and mass killings of Palestinians is a legitimate response to the region’s complicated past. It isn’t. - Author: Aman Sethi - Tags: Gaza, genocide, Israel, Palestine, anti-Zionism And so each year since 2023, as the summer gives way to autumn, we must consider and contemplate 7 October. The thing that defenders of Israel say to anyone seeking to comprehend the true horror of its actions in the Middle East is that it is all incredibly complicated. That what looks like genocide in Gaza, colonisation and unfathomable repression in Palestine, and war and illegal occupation in Lebanon, is actually a legitimate response that can be understood only with complete knowledge of every UN resolution, every section and subsection of every accord signed, and every nuance of who has rights over each grain of sand in this bloodsoaked land. As a consequence, those who choose to speak about Israel must choose their words very, very carefully, and begin any conversation about Palestine and the Palestinian people with an invocation of the suffering of the Israeli people, an acknowledgement of the right of the state of Israel to exist, and the disavowal of any form of protest that goes beyond signing online petitions (and often even those). Only then can one contemplate the consequences of the Israeli state’s decades long policy of encirclement, brutalisation and apartheid. By the time that’s done, one finds oneself wrestling what Ta-Nehisi Coates termed “the elevation of factual complexity over self-evident morality”. “This elevation of complexity over justice is part and parcel of the effort to forge a story of Palestine told solely by the coloniser,” Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote in his book, *The Message*, “an effort that extends to the proscribing of boycotts by American states, the revocation of articles by journals, the expulsion of students from universities, the dismissal of news anchors by skittish networks, the shooting of journalists by army snipers, and the car-bombing of novelists by spy agencies.” So let us begin by acknowledging that no one, let alone this writer, condones the killing of civilians – be they Palestinian or Lebanese, or Iranian, or Yemeni, or Israeli. Let us acknowledge the genuine tragedy of the deaths of the approximately 1,200 Israelis and the trauma of those taken hostage by Hamas. But then let us then cut through all the supposed complexity to acknowledge that genocide is not a legitimate response to an attack by armed insurgents. That genocide is not a legitimate response to anything. That what has happened in Gaza is genocide, as the United Nations has determined, and that there is no excuse for the actions of the Israeli state since 7 October 2023. Over the past three years, Israeli forces have killed over 74,000 civilians. But this is likely an undercount; the Palestinian Ministry of Health counts only deaths recorded at hospitals or officially registered, excluding the thousands still missing, many of them buried under rubble. UN reports suggest Israeli forces have deliberately targeted Gaza’s young, killing at least [20,000 children](https://www.un.org/unispal/document/coi-report-23jun26/?ref=opendemocracy.net). Nearly 50,000 women and girls have been injured or killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since 7 October 2023, [according to UN Women](https://www.unwomen.org/en/news-stories/press-release/2026/10/media-fact-sheet-nearly-50000-women-and-girls-killed-or-severely-injured-in-gaza-in-three-years-of-war?ref=opendemocracy.net). Nearly every woman and girl in Gaza has been displaced by the relentless bombardment, according to the same fact sheet. Let’s pause here: nearly every woman and girl in Gaza has been displaced. Another factsheet, this time by [UNICEF USA](https://www.unicefusa.org/stories/more-50000-children-killed-or-injured-gaza?ref=opendemocracy.net), estimates that nearly 64,000 children were injured or killed as of October 2025 – that’s a year ago. In June this year, an independent commission of the UN [concluded](https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/06/1167790?ref=opendemocracy.net) that Israel continues to commit genocide in Palestine despite the announcement of a so-called ceasefire in October last year. Israel has killed at least 1,000 people in Palestine since then, including children. Here is how a UN commissioner describes one such death, in which Israeli forces killed a 14-year-old Palestinian boy as he left his house. “He was shot, badly injured and was lying on the ground,” Chris Sidoti [said](https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/06/1167790?ref=opendemocracy.net) at a press conference in Geneva. “He was surrounded by a company of Israeli soldiers who were chatting and probably some of them smoking, over a period of 45 minutes, while this 14-year-old boy bled to death.” The UN commissioner is not describing a case of a child caught in crossfire; he is describing a child bleeding to death in the presence of Israeli soldiers. This is not complicated, this is straightforward. It is noteworthy that many of these statistics focus on the Palestinian women and children killed by Israelis. “Look,” these grim numbers seem to say, “these are *clearly* innocent civilians. Surely, we can all agree that armies should not target children.” But even these statistics seem inadequate in the face of governments, journalists, and talking heads insisting that one really doesn’t know the truth of what Israel has done and continues to do in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Palestine. Implicit in the well-intentioned reiteration of these statistics, including here in this column, is that all Palestinian men, by definition, are suspected terrorists. I realised this when I was reading *Perfect Victims*, a book by Palestinian writer and poet Mohammed El-Kurd, as part of my reading for this column. “For far too long the Palestinians have been reduced to ‘women and children’. One implication here is robbing women and children of their agency and their political or revolutionary contributions,” El-Kurd writes. “Another is the further demonization of Palestinian men as deserving of death and unworthy of mourning, exiled from their loved ones’ embrace.” ## **Gaza and the left** For some years now, those who claim to be on – and speak for – what is broadly described as “the left” have bemoaned the lack of energy on their side, compared to the ascendent right wing. It has become commonplace to talk about how the left has forgotten how to organise, how very online, overly woke activists have lost touch with their communities. Yet anyone following the popular energy coursing around the world in support of Palestine knows this is nonsense. Just last year, a global network of activists managed to organise the [Sumud Flotilla](https://www.opendemocracy.net/i-was-kidnapped-by-the-israeli-navy-en-route-to-gaza/), an unarmed armada of over 40 boats carrying vital medical supplies and more than 500 participants from at least 44 countries, which attempted to sail from Europe and Africa to Gaza. The boats were intercepted; European governments stood by and watched as their own citizens were struck by Israeli drones. There is no shortage of energy on the left, but there is a tremendous shortage of enthusiasm for the stale, vaguely progressive, mostly uninspiring centrist agendas put forward by many left leaders. As [openDemocracy reported](https://www.opendemocracy.net/around-the-world-people-fight-for-palestine-as-authorities-crack-down/) last month, people around the world are still agitating for Palestine even in the face of brutal crackdowns from governments afraid of upsetting the United States. It is revealing that, in the UK, when the Green Party (a rare political party where ordinary members can table motions) this week tabled a motion labeling Zionism as racism, it passed; much to the discomfort of party leadership. The liberal press promptly castigated the party leadership for not taming their unruly followers. Much like the members of the Green Party, we can each debate if Zionism is racism – but the gulf between the leadership and the rank and file neatly sums up the state of progressive politics today. Polling reveals that positions on Israel that the mainstream media, including the liberal press, describe as extreme are actually quite mainstream: [A 2025 Washington Post poll](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/10/06/jewish-americans-israel-poll-gaza/?ref=opendemocracy.net) of American Jews found 61 percent believed Israel committed war crimes in Gaza with 40 percent believing Israel has committed genocide. [Nearly half of American Jews under the age of 35](https://forward.com/news/827329/poll-american-jews-binational-state-anti-zionism/?ref=opendemocracy.net) believe that the Israeli conflict should be solved by creating a single, binational state — a version of the one-state solution that the Green Party's members have been roundly criticised for supporting. ## **States versus People** As a citizen of India, a country ruled by a regime that [routinely enacts hyperviolence ](https://www.opendemocracy.net/india-modi-cockroach-neet-protests/)on its own citizens, it is evident that the genocide in Gaza makes a mockery of the categories of colonisers and the formerly-colonised; of the so-called Global South and the Global North. India’s ruling party experiences no cognitive dissonance in venerating Hitler while buying Israeli weaponry to quell internal rebellion and spy on dissidents. Earlier this year, the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi visited Israel, where he received the first-ever [“Knesset Medal”](https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20260226-brothers-in-arms-modi-and-netanyahu-deep-ties-remain-unshakable?ref=opendemocracy.net), a seemingly made-up award. “You are a great friend of Israel. You are more than a friend. You are a brother,” [Binyamin Netanyahu](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/8/how-gaza-war-sped-up-indias-shift-towards-israel-under-modi?ref=opendemocracy.net) told Modi as he welcomed him to the Israeli parliament. While it is true that some countries, most notably South Africa, have drawn on their shared experience of apartheid to stand with the people of Palestine, it is no longer enough for us to use 20th-century terminologies and political theory to make sense of the world that Gaza has laid bare. There is no walking back from this moment to a before time, no retreat into comfortable boundaries. In a world where nation-states are completely unmoored from the aspirations of their citizens and the diktats of international law, we the people must band together and navigate the future in the flotillas and caravans of hope and solidarity.