WORDS fall short when it comes to describing the scale and depth of horror unfolding in Palestine, whose people face a systematic devastation that mocks every principle of human existence. Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, has described what the world already knew but is reluctant to confront openly — that Israel has effectively institutionalised torture as state policy. Her report lays bare what countless doctors, UN workers and journalists have attested to: Palestinians live within a “continuum of physical and mental suffering”, stripped of their dignity and with their unending suffering ample proof of international failure. As the world’s gaze shifts towards the US-Israel conflict with Iran, Gaza and the West Bank continue to bleed. Last October’s ‘ceasefire’ has proved a mere illusion. Gaza’s health ministry reported 677 killed and 1,800 injured since the truce began. According to reports, a paramedic on his way to an iftar meal was killed by a drone strike, becoming one of over 1,500 healthcare workers slain so far, 10 during the ceasefire alone. UN experts now speak of ‘medicide’ — the deliberate destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system, where hospitals lie in ruins and doctors work amid rubble. The savagery extends beyond Gaza. In Tammun village, Israeli officers gunned down four members of a family. Yet investigators decided not to question the killers. An 11-year-old survivor recalled being beaten after watching his family being slaughtered. In central Gaza, reports described how a one-year-old was tortured with burning cigarettes before his detained father’s eyes — a grotesque symbol of the abyss of inhumanity into which Israel has chosen to descend.

Each day brings evidence of a war against life itself. Israel destroys homes and hospitals. Its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, presides over a machinery of brutality that the world’s silence sustains. History will not forgive this silent complicity. As Ms Albanese warned, disregard for international law will not stop in Palestine. It will spread to wherever power believes it can crush justice without facing consequences. The question is no longer what Israel will stop at but whether the world will ever say ‘enough’. What has been unfolding in Palestine is an indictment of world leaders and a global community that have failed to act despite knowing full well that Israel is out to decimate an entire population.

Published in Dawn, March 25th, 2026