Just one fact.
It’s hard to look at photos of Palestinian babies and children without feeling despair. Without feeling shame. Without feeling that just by seeing this and doing nothing that I am complicit to the most unspeakable harm. We are all complicit. I urge you, do not look away. Do not furnish this moment with propaganda that excuses you, and blames the victims for their own death.
To see their tiny limbs, their swollen bellies, the sharp line of their spines, with their skin thinly covering their fragile bones, is painful. I can’t imagine this being my child. Starvation makes people seem alien. We don’t recognise this form as entirely human. It’s how we disassociate from what we are seeing.
And the eyes. Large round sad eyes. Eyes that look out to the world and hope to catch our gaze. Eyes that reach across the world to find our humanity. Eyes that look into my soul and ask me: are there really two sides to what’s happening in Gaza? When I look at a baby dying from forced starvation I can only see one truth. There are never two sides in the abuse of children. Just one fact. The wilful and violent murder of a child weaponised as human collateral to punish a nation. It’s ideological.
A child who will die never knowing or understanding that they have become a weapon of war. They will die before they even develop language. Food is power. This famine is not climate-induced. It is not a failure of crops. It is a failure of humanity. It is a war crime. It is designed to dismantle Palestine. To destroy the hearts and future of a nation. This is violent, settler colonialism in full swing. This is a man-made famine. And we know the men who are making it happen. These are men who kill babies. And the world keeps letting them.
This is not war. War suggests a fight between two equal sides. This is genocide. And starvation isn’t a consequence, it’s a tactic. Babies and little kids and teenagers and their mothers are dying. There is food. The world has sent it. But it’s not getting in. And at this level of starvation, food is no longer the solution. There are babies with the hearts of 85-year-old men. Babies who could die from refeeding because of the damage of starvation.
The majority of humanitarian aid and food assistance has been blocked by Israel. That is a fact. This was reported yesterday by 15 international aid agencies on Al Jazeera. And the food that gets in is being randomly distributed, with boys as young as ten who collect rations for their families being shot by the IDF. Daily.
International law is clear. ‘The use of starvation as a method of warfare is prohibited.’ So why is it still happening? Who will hold the Netanyahu government to account? Where are the sanctions? Where is the justice? Who will save these babies?
Historically, genocide is often proven in international courts after the fact. But right now the world bears witness. We are watching genocide on our social media feeds. To constitute genocide there must be proven intent on the part of the perpetrators to physically destroy an ethnic, racial or religious group. The forced starvation of Gaza meets this criteria.
The Holocaust Museum outlines the ten stages of genocide. The genocide in Gaza meets all of these ten stages. In particular ‘10. Denial – the perpetrators of the genocide deny having committed their crimes. Victims are often blamed. Evidence is hidden and witnesses are intimidated.’
In the future we will be asked what we did when the babies of Gaza were starved. When Palestine experienced genocide.
Stand up. Speak out. Raise your voice. Push this government. Stand for peace. Sanctions. Justice. Action. And most importantly protect the babies of Gaza.
- Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox column has appeared in The Echo for almost 23 years. The personal and the political often meet here; she’s also been the Greens federal candidate since before the last two federal elections. The Echo’s coverage of political issues will remain as comprehensive and fair as it has ever been, outside this opinion column which, as always, contains Mandy’s personal opinions only.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
