Another night of horror in Gaza, another day of global silence

While Israel resumes its genocidal campaign, exterminating whole Palestinian families, the world justifies the massacre, ignores suffering and silences those who manifest themselves.

It was 4 am when I staggered from the bed, half sleeping, to get a glass of water – a simple and thoughtless act. When I took my phone, I hesitated. Checking it could keep me awake. I would like to have resisted.

The screen illuminated. My feed was drowning in horror – again. Gaza. Another massacre.

In the beginning, the numbers were uncertain. One hundred dead. Then 200. Then 300. But I knew. The number always increases. And this time, I wouldn’t stop… 350… 400… 450.

In just two hours, Israel destroyed more than 450 innocent lives.

My head throbbed. My chest squeezed. A wave of nausea hit me as I looked at the images – bodies wrapped in white shrouds, dust -covered children, fathers holding their lifeless children, mothers shouting at night, their pain swallowed by the silence of a world that refuses to care. These are the types of images that should shake humanity to the core, but somehow they never do.

Endless horror

My hands trembled when I started making calls. This is what I always do when Gaza is under attack. It’s what every Palestinian with family there does. We call. We check. We begged for an answer.

My heart beat hard. Anxiety, helplessness – was back, like a wound that barely began to close before being opened again.

No one answered.

I tried again. And again. Still nothing. My stomach turned around. Were they safe? Was their house still standing? Did the bombs reach them? The worst part is that I knew they had nowhere to run. There is no shelter. No safe area. No escape.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, my mother answered. Her voice was firm, but I could hear the exhaustion under her.

“What can we do?” she said. “We are here. There is nowhere to run.”

She was trying to talk to my sisters. No answer. My heart squeezed. I tried to call them myself – nothing. I tried again – yet nothing. The silence was deafening. And yet, somehow they expected me to continue with my day. It worked as if everything was normal.

But how can it be normal when 450 people are massacred in a single night? When are whole families decimated? When parents are left digging the rubble with their own hands, looking for their children? How can something be normal when my people are starving, being bombarded and massacred – and the world still refuses to see us as humans?

And while I was sitting there, looking at the growing number of dead, I wondered-since it’s such an impressive number of lost innocent lives-would I wake up with an email asking for a minute of silence in your memory? Would world leaders rush to condemn this crime? Would social media be flooded with solidarity? Would the milestones illuminate with the colors of the Palestinian flag? Would the 10 Downing Street project our flag in mourning?

Of course.

Instead, we will witness the silence of the accomplices. The West will justify the massacre, distort reality and dehumanize the victims. Palestinian lives will be overlooked, deleted – treated as if they do not matter.

When will this end? Gaza is starving, his people are deprived of food, water and medicine – and now they are being massacred while sleeping. Bombs rain on their homes, the schools where they seek shelter and the hospitals where they fight to survive. Everything is being destroyed and yet the world refuses to act.

Complicit world

The more it will need?

How many mothers will more bury their children? How many more parents will have to get their babies out of the rubble? How many ordinary ditches more will have to be dug before the world finally opens its eyes?

We see that. We see double patterns. We see hypocrisy. We see how cheap Palestinian blood is in the eyes of the world. And we see as the same governments that preach about human rights, about democracy, the rule of law, are the same ones that arrange and defend our oppressors.

Injustice is unbearable. Cruelty is unspeakable. And it’s not just Palestinians in Palestine who suffer this injustice. Talk about Palestine in the West and you risk being arrested, deported, accused of terrorism and anti -Semitism, or even losing your job. Silencing is global. Oppression is global.

I don’t know if my sisters are safe. I don’t know if my family will survive the next air strike. I don’t know how many nights I wake up with the news of another massacre.

But I know that: no matter how much the world try to silence us, we won’t stop talking. No matter how much they try to erase us, we will not disappear. No matter how much they try to break us, Palestine will live.

Even if the world refuses to see us – we are here. And we will not be forgotten.

Stop bombarding us. Stop killing us. Stop erasing us. The world cannot continue to look away.

Originally published by Mee on 19/03/2025

In Ahmed Najar

The opinions expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Ahmed Najar is a Palestinian political analyst and playwright who uses the theater to tell Palestinian stories, mixing personal experiences with broader political comments.