The current Israeli regime is responsible for carrying out genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. This is the opinion of a United Nations Special Committee, Amnesty International, Médecins Sans Frontières, B’Tselem, and Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) – as well as of many principled individuals the world over.

Independent news outlets have regularly covered the killing and maiming of men, women, and children, and the destruction of homes and civilian infrastructure, as well as the forced displacement, mass starvation, and denial of humanitarian aid in Gaza. At last, they, too, are calling it genocide.

Over the past two years, Israeli media have been weaponised. The Conversation reported (22 May 2025) that “media bias over the war in Gaza has been institutionalized in Israel. Citing national security reasons, the Israel Defense Forces has ramped up censorship… Furthermore, online platforms such as Facebook and X are designed to promote posts that reinforce users’ preexisting beliefs, resulting in an echo chamber rather than exposing people to diverse viewpoints.”

Palestinian journalists have been targeted. The Reuters Institute notes (22 July 2025) that since the deadly Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023, almost 200 journalists have been killed in Gaza by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the country has seen increased media censorship, government boycotts and restrictions on editorial independence.

In this situation of terror and terrorisation, the right to communicate is critical, yet humanitarian law is vague about its norms and mechanisms. The issue has been taken up by the Internet Governance Forum, but a coherent framework is still lacking that would guarantee access to core internet capabilities, resources, and trustworthy information.

As Article 19 underlined (3 July 2025), “Palestinian Journalists have remained the only voices reporting from on the ground in Gaza since the start of the war in October 2023, yet they continue to be targeted, attacked, and obstructed in an atmosphere of total impunity for crimes against them.”

Worse still, as UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese reported in detail to the Human Rights Council (30 June 2025), and for which she was subsequently sanctioned by the US government:

“While life in Gaza is being obliterated and the West Bank is under escalating assault, this report shows why Israel’s genocide continues: because it is lucrative for many. By shedding light on the political economy of an occupation turned genocidal, the report reveals how the forever-occupation has become the ideal testing ground for arms manufacturers and Big Tech – providing boundless supply and demand, little oversight, and zero accountability – while investors and private and public institutions profit freely. Too many influential corporate entities remain inextricably financially bound to Israel’s apartheid and militarism.”

Gaza’s fate is a stain on the conscience of people and nations everywhere. Israel is in clear violation of its own Basic Law, which affirms that “Every human being is entitled to protection of their life, body and dignity.”

In his latest act of terrorism, Benjamin Netanyahu is advocating military occupation of Gaza City in opposition to his own security officials. UN human rights chief Volker Turk says that the plan “runs contrary to the ruling of the International Court of Justice that Israel must bring its occupation to an end as soon as possible, to the realisation of the agreed two-State solution and to the right of Palestinians to self-determination.”

The Israeli government may think it can act with impunity in taking revenge on Hamas, but humanitarian law and universal morality say otherwise. It was Shakespeare’s Macbeth who, after murdering King Duncan, cried out that it would take an ocean to wash the blood from his hands (Macbeth, 1.2.59-62) – and still the ocean would turn from green to red.

While politicians dither, corporate hucksters profit, and many stay silent, the slaughter in Gaza goes relentlessly on. Tragically, everyone’s hands are now permanently stained.

Photos: Left: Palestinian woman Inas Abu Maamar, 36, embraces the body of her 5-year-old niece Saly, who was killed in an Israeli strike, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, October 17, 2023. Reuters photographer Mohammad Salem saw Inas squatting on the ground in the morgue, sobbing and tightly embracing Saly’s body. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem. The parallel with Michelangelo’s Pietà is obvious.  

Right: Michelangelo’s Pieta, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.