We seem to now have entered the concentration camp era of the ongoing genocide in Gaza. In the aftermath of the Second World War, the world made a vow: ‘Never Again’. It was a promise not just to the victims of the Holocaust but to all future generations, that such systematic, state-sponsored annihilation would never be allowed to occur again. Yet, barely three years after that war ended, the same world powers who made that promise oversaw the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their ancestral homes in 1948 – the Nakba – laying the foundations of one of the most enduring and blood-soaked conflicts of the modern era. Today, that broken promise echoes through the ruins of Gaza. Since October 2023, Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has reached a level of devastation that many human rights organisations and legal scholars have called genocidal. More than 57,000 Palestinians have been killed, nearly 137,000 wounded (and these are just conservative numbers; the reality is thought to be far far worse). Entire neighbourhoods have been erased. Nearly every civilian in Gaza has been displaced, and hundreds of thousands now face starvation. Hospitals are non-functional. Humanitarian aid is restricted. Babies have died from lack of milk.
And yet, Western governments, the supposed torchbearers of human rights and international law, have remained conspicuously silent, or worse, actively complicit. When Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz revealed plans to forcibly relocate Palestinians into ‘tent cities’ in Rafah – pretty much a cover for ethnic cleansing and disturbingly reminiscent of 20th-century concentration camps – what did the world do? Absolutely nothing. These plans mirror what some have called the ‘Trump Plan’ for Gaza: depopulate it, then render it uninhabitable for return. The truth is that it’s never ‘Never Again’ when it comes to the Palestinians. And this dehumanisation is not new. It has just reached a grotesque climax. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump, eager to portray himself as a peacemaker, has teased a ceasefire ‘near completion’ – though these talks have yielded nothing tangible for Palestinians.
The Holocaust was a defining moral collapse. What is happening in Gaza today is a test of whether we have learned anything since. And if history is any judge, we have not. But there is a shift. Public opinion is turning. Across continents, ordinary people are refusing to buy into the tired narratives that have long painted Palestinians as inherently violent and Israelis as eternally righteous. The myth is fraying, and with it, the patience of people who see through the moral bankruptcy of the world order. It is past time for global leaders to be held accountable – not only for what they say, but for what they allow, what they fund, and what they ignore. The Gaza Holocaust is a clarifying moment. Unless the world acts decisively, it will bury the last remnants of our collective conscience.