The Guardian: We Are Witnessing the Final Stage of Genocide in Gaza

In an article by journalist Arwa Mahdawi, she begins with the question, “Do you want to know a fun fact about Palestinians?” She answers, “It’s hard to kill them. You can bomb them, bury them under rubble, burn them alive, yet they seem not to die at the rates of ordinary people.”

The article published in “The Guardian” also questions, “How can you explain that the death toll in Gaza barely budges despite it seeming that not a day goes by without another massacre, with famine worsening and diseases spreading?”

Mahdawi states, “43,000 Palestinian deaths is an astonishing number… and that’s the official figure mentioned in the latest media coverage, if a number is cited at all: many articles about Gaza no longer even mention the death toll.”

She noted that “it’s clear that media coverage has no idea how many people have been killed, partly because foreign press isn’t allowed to enter freely – and I don’t understand why every journalist in the West isn’t outraged by this.”

Mahdawi continued, “At the same time, Palestinian journalists are being eradicated – and I don’t understand why every journalist in the West isn’t outraged by this,” pointing out the overall media blackout. Thus, it’s hard to assess the death toll, and citing the official number of 43,000 deaths without a long list of caveats seems like journalistic negligence at this stage.”

She asserted that anyone “citing the death toll should mention the fact that UN estimates in May (months ago!) found that there are likely ten thousand people buried under the rubble in Gaza and uncountable, not to mention the fact that people are dying from preventable diseases every day because sufficient medicines are not allowed into the sector and because the healthcare system barely functions.”

She mentioned that “they should emphasize the fact that counting the dead is nearly impossible. There’s no longer an infrastructure in Gaza through which to measure the dead or properly mourn them… Palestinians are being blown to bits at alarming rates so that often there are no remains to count.”

Mahdawi explained that she recently spoke to Dr. Nizam Mahmoud, a British surgeon who worked in Gaza with Medical Aid for Palestinians during August and September, who told her that people in the hospital morgue must weigh body parts to try to assess the number of dead: “So, 70 kilograms is one body because they’ll bring parts of bodies.”

She indicated that “many observers now believe the actual death toll may be in the hundreds of thousands, and in July, the medical journal Lancet published an article estimating that the total number of deaths in Gaza could reach 186,000 — about 7.9 percent of its population.”

In an article published by The Guardian last month, Devi Sridhar, the chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, mentioned that if “deaths” continue at this rate, the death estimates by the end of the year could reach 335,000, representing 15 percent of the population.

Sridhar also noted that Lancet used a conservative estimate and the actual numbers could be significantly higher.

Mahdawi stated, “Defenders of what’s happening will shrug their shoulders and say: this is what happens in war. It’s tragic, but it’s a war, the innocents die all the time. But the truth is that wars have rules and limits. The scale of destruction in Gaza strongly suggests that what is happening is no longer a war by any standard.”

She said, “The reality is that many experts are sounding the alarm that what is now occurring has become genocide. Yet many mainstream media continue to ignore these warning bells, continuing to pretend what’s happening is a regular war and not systematic genocide.”

Mahdawi highlighted that Omer Bartov, an Israeli-American historian who specializes in Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University, is one of the experts who believes what’s happening in Gaza constitutes genocide, though he hasn’t always believed this was the case.

In November, Bartov wrote in The New York Times, “I believe there is no evidence that genocide is currently taking place,” but this came with a disclaimer as he explained there is “genocidal intent, which could easily turn into genocidal action… There is still time to prevent Israel from allowing its actions to turn into genocide.”

She noted that intent is a fundamental element in genocide, which is legally defined as committing certain acts (including killing and imposing measures to prevent births) with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, as such.

Bartov refers to the dehumanizing language and threats of complete eradication by Israeli politicians and influential figures, with hundreds of such statements available.

Bartov cites an example from October 9, when Major General Giora Eiland wrote in the daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, “There is no choice for the State of Israel but to turn Gaza into a place where it is temporarily or permanently impossible to live,” and in another article, Eiland wrote that “Gaza will become a place where no human can live.”

She pointed out that in November, when Bartov wrote his article for The New York Times, these genocidal intents had not yet fully matched genocidal action. But this changed, from Bartov’s perspective, in May 2024, when the occupation army began its attack on the city of Rafah, despite a warning from the United States against doing so.

Bartov told the article’s writer in a recent phone call, “That was a major turning point. That was when it became genocide.”

Bartov added, “Looking back, you can see there was a concerted effort, not just to repeatedly displace the population, but also to destroy everything that makes life for a group possible. There was a deliberate and concerted effort to destroy universities, schools, hospitals, mosques, museums, public buildings, housing, and infrastructure. Looking back, you can say this was happening from the beginning. But the evidence of this effort was last in Rafah.”

The writer explained that Rafah was a grim landmark, but the final stage of this genocide, as Bartov says, is now taking place in Jabalia, northern Gaza, where over a thousand people have been killed in the past three weeks. We should not view what is happening in northern Gaza — as it often seems in the media — as just more bombing. Bartov points out that what is happening in northern Gaza is a genocidal campaign clearly based on the generals’ plan.

Bartov added that “This plan, drawn up by retired General Giora Eiland, which has been discussed for months in the Israeli media, aims to empty that area of civilians through military pressure and starvation.. and this is but the first step towards annexing the sector north of the Nitzarim corridor, which will lead to Jewish settlement therein and will not in itself be anything but the first stage in a gradual takeover of increasing parts of the sector, continuously shrinking civilian areas and eventually either forcing them out of the sector or causing increasing numbers of them to die. In short, this is a genocidal plan.”

She noted that it is likely that the International Court of Justice will not rule for years on whether the situation in Gaza meets the narrow legal definition of genocide. But Bartov believes the operation in Jabalia is such an egregious genocide that “the International Court of Justice might consider this operation a genocide even if it is cautious about the war in Gaza as a whole.”

This is what happened in the case of Bosnia, where the Srebrenica massacre was proven to be genocide.

She confirmed that the term genocide — coined by the Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin during World War II to describe Nazi extermination campaigns — is undoubtedly one of the most serious terms.

It is not a term anyone should use lightly. Bartov, one of the foremost researchers in genocide studies, does not use it lightly. Yet, he believes it is time for the media, which avoids using this word, to “face the facts.” What is happening in Gaza is genocide.