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An Israeli soldier would position his leg against the wall in the narrow corridor to our school, then order us: “Pass under my leg, or no school.”
That was a recurring event for us children during the early 1990s in our Al-Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza, the “beach camp.”
These images are part of a series highlighting the suffering of children in Gaza, where a humanitarian disaster is escalating and civilians are starving.
It took us some growing up to understand it as systematic humiliation, an experience that would define most of our encounters with the Israeli army. That left many of us feeling helpless and outraged, as it seemed an attack on our humanity.
This is why when former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant called us “khayot adam” (human animals) after Hamas’ bloody attack on Oct. 7, 2023, it was not a surprise. Yet, this time, there was an eerie feeling that Gallant was thinking beyond the typical Israeli dehumanization of us.
With 20,000 dead in Israel’s bombing of Gaza, we feel compelled to prove our humanity. We have been denied agency as a people.
“It was a prelude to dismantling what was left of us as a people,” Yousri al-Ghoul, a novelist from Gaza, told me over Whatsapp, in one of many ongoing conversations I maintain with contacts, friends and family in Gaza.
Throughout history, dehumanization preceded and justified atrocities. The Nazis before the Shoah, and the Hutu against the Tutsi before the 1994 Rwanda genocide.
Before Israel’s 1948 inception, the Zionist movement in Palestine negated our national consciousness, calling us merely “Arabs,” suggesting an absence of a unique identity. And by viewing us much as colonial powers viewed their subjects, we were perceived as inferior and less worthy of statehood.
Many Israelis today see Palestinians as Palestinians — a people with an identity — but still hang on, at least unconsciously, to the notion of superior Israeli Jews. This hierarchical thinking has normalized the occupation, so that Palestinian resistance against it is perceived as aggression against the natural order.
Decades of undermining our agency has evolved to a monstrous level, destroying what was left of our physical existence. Seemingly, it’s now not enough to besiege, indiscriminately bomb, displace and starve us. We’re now asked to die for food.
“We were lured into death traps labeled as humanitarian aid,” says Ahmed, a history teacher in Gaza, referring to the new system of food distribution under the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
“Even our bodies, the last pasture of dignity, are reduced to breathing corpses,” he added.
“Corpses” is the word the commissioner-general of the U.N. aid agency for Palestinians, Philippe Lazzarini, used to describe Gazans. Quoting a colleague in Gaza, he said they “are neither dead nor alive, they are walking corpses.”
This is a metaphor my uncle, a professor of English literature, has used to describe Gazans under Israeli siege since 2007. He quoted T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” to paint an image of a Gaza engulfed with despair and spiritual aridity.
To Ahmed, “corpses are not people, so no compunction killing them.”
Indeed, the Gaza war is the bloodiest in recent memory. Palestinian numbers point to 59,000, including 18,000 children, killed by the Israeli military as of July. A study by the University of London estimates the death toll to be 100,000.
More than 85% of those who remain alive are displaced, squeezed into only 20% of the narrow strip of land. Many of them are facing famine, while the rest are months into sustained malnutrition.
A dire situation has weakened many Gazans’ sense of self. No longer do they care if they live or die, many have told me.
Over a thousand aid-seekers were killed as they tried to reach Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution sites, but people still went knowing they may not come back. “The U.S. contractors manning the aid treat our desperation as savagery, and the IDF shoots us like rats,” Ahmed angrily said, referring to Israel Defense Forces.
And the hungrier and more deprived people become, the less “like us” they appear.
Al-Ghoul, the novelist, lamented how the “hunger games” turned some people against each other, driven by basic survival instincts. He added: “Don’t talk to me about civility when my children are fading to skin and bone.”
Meanwhile, Gaza writer Mahmoud Assaf told me that as the war fractures Gaza’s society, “personal survival tops everything. Very few people are now concerned with culture, education or morality, things that Palestinians typically took pride of.”
Assaf was offered money to sell his cherished library to be burned as fuel in the absence of basic petroleum-based products or wood. “I actually considered the offer to feed my children,” he said.
“You lose your soul hopping hungry from a displacement tent to another while herded by Israeli drones and tanks. You feel you don’t deserve to live,” he added.
But in the ocean of despair, there are those who find salvation in faith to reclaim some of their humanity.
My mother, 65, is losing the strength to walk because of malnutrition, as I watch helplessly from the U.K. But she tells everyone to keep faith, because through faith “she feels complete as a human being.”
A comforting outlook for many Palestinians, in a world they feel has abandoned them.
“The world says the Holocaust happened because they didn’t know about it. But the Gaza bloodshed is live-streamed,” my friend Murad told me.
He added, “What can I do to prove my humanity to be worthy of saving?”
“Shall I show them my blond blue-eyed daughter so they can relate to us? How about our malnourished cats?”
Our conversation was after an Israeli airstrike killed Murad’s sister and her family in Al-Shuja’iyya, a neighborhood in eastern Gaza City. We spoke as he searched for water to wash up following hours digging out his sister’s family from the rubble.
Murad’s niece, 5, died from malnutrition a week ago.
And like all Gazans, he’s deprived of grieving his loved ones. “No time to grieve,” he said, because one has to shut down such natural human instincts to physically survive.
And in doing so, one loses part of their soul, the sense of self as a human being.
To close the circle of dehumanization, they deny our right to feel pain.
Emad Moussa is a Palestinian British researcher and writer specializing in the political psychology of inter-group and conflict dynamics.
Insights
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Perspectives
The following AI-generated content is powered by Perplexity. The Los Angeles Times editorial staff does not create or edit the content.
Ideas expressed in the piece
- Dehumanization as a strategic tool: The article argues that systematic dehumanization of Gazans, exemplified by historical paternalistic control (e.g., humiliating schoolchildren) and contemporary rhetoric (e.g., labeling Palestinians as “human animals”), has enabled widespread atrocities during the Gaza war[3][4].
- Starvation as a weapon: Gazans face famine due to an Israeli blockade, with 470,000 at risk of starvation and 85% displaced into under 20% of Gaza’s territory. Aid distribution has become deadly, with mass casualties at sites controlled by Israeli forces and U.S. contractors[1][2][3].
- Cultural and societal collapse: Survivors report losing dignity, solidarity, and cultural identity due to extreme survival pressures. Examples include selling family libraries for fuel and prioritizing survival over morality or education[3][4].
- International hypocrisy: The crisis is contrasted with historical genocides like the Holocaust, which were rationalized as unknown atrocities. The Gaza war’s live-streamed horrors, however, have failed to prompt decisive international intervention[3][4].
Different views on the topic
- Security-driven justifications: While not explicitly covered in the provided sources, broader Israeli perspectives often frame military actions as necessary counter-terrorism measures. For example, Hamas’ attacks on October 7, 2023, led to large-scale operations, which Israeli officials argue are aimed at neutralizing threats to civilian safety[1][4].
- Complex conflict dynamics: The search results emphasize humanitarian consequences but do not address Hamas’ governance role or its use of civilian infrastructure. Some external arguments might highlight Hamas’ responsibility in exacerbating the crisis, a perspective absent in the sources provided[4].
- Global response limitations: The article critiques international inaction, but opposing views might acknowledge logistical challenges in delivering aid under active conflict, a nuance not fully captured in the humanitarian reports[1][2].
Note: The search results focus on humanitarian data and do not include explicit opposing viewpoints to the article’s analysis.
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