On the Question of Genocide in Gaza

How do we distinguish between tragic war casualties and deliberate genocide when children are both victims and tools of a violent agenda?

We are living in a time where the word “genocide” is being used not as a legal term but as a daily talking point. Since Israel’s military response to the October 7 attacks, accusations of genocide have dominated global discourse. Protesters chant it, social media amplifies it, and international bodies are now investigating it. But how did we get here, and is the accusation grounded in fact?

To understand the roots of this claim, we must first understand the situation on the ground and the ideology at the heart of the conflict. Hamas is not simply a political party in Gaza. It is a terrorist organisation, internationally recognised as such, with a founding charter that explicitly calls for the destruction of Israel. Article 7 of the Hamas charter even references a prophecy about Muslims killing Jews, and its leadership has consistently rejected peaceful solutions in favour of armed struggle. It is not a group merely resisting occupation, but one committed to religiously and ideologically driven warfare.

On October 7, Hamas slaughtered over a thousand Israeli civilians, including babies, children, the elderly, and entire families. They took hostages and filmed it proudly. And since then, they have launched thousands of rockets into Israeli territory, continuing a long-standing pattern of violence. Israel, like any sovereign state, responded militarily. But Gaza is not a battlefield in the conventional sense. Hamas operates within densely populated civilian areas, uses schools, hospitals, and mosques as shields, and embeds its military infrastructure within homes. This is not speculation. It is documented and, at times, openly admitted by Hamas officials themselves.

The result is tragic and horrifying. Civilians have died, and children are among the dead. The images coming out of Gaza are deeply distressing. But do they amount to genocide?

Genocide is not defined by body count alone. It is defined by intent. The Genocide Convention outlines genocide as acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. That word, intent, is crucial. If during World War II, a Nazi air raid dropped bombs on an East London neighborhood largely made up of Asian residents today, causing tens of thousands of deaths, that would be a tragedy. But it would not be genocide unless it could be shown that Asians were the specific target. It is not about who dies, but why they were targeted.

Apply that logic to Gaza. Israel is targeting Hamas, not Palestinians as an ethnic or religious group. Israel has even dropped leaflets, made phone calls, and used other methods to warn civilians before strikes. Israel has supplied humanitarian corridors, medical aid, and coordinated evacuations even in the middle of a war. These are not the actions of a state intent on destruction. They are the actions of a state trying to conduct warfare against an enemy that hides behind its own civilians.

Nearly half of Gaza’s population is under 18. Hamas knows this. They have operated summer camps where children are trained for combat. Video footage shows children encouraged to throw stones at IDF soldiers, and civilians using their children in propaganda. When schools are used to store weapons or launch attacks, those schools become legitimate military targets. But it is Hamas that has put them there.

At what point do we ask why so many children are dying? Is it entirely Israel’s doing? Or is it the result of a strategy that uses children not just as shields, but as tools in a broader propaganda war?

This is not about denying or minimising civilian suffering. The images are real. The grief is real. But we must not let our emotions blind us to the complexity of the situation. If a child runs toward an Israeli soldier in a war zone, how is that soldier supposed to know whether that child is being used as bait or is carrying an explosive? This is the uncomfortable truth. This is the army Hamas has engineered. And these are the ethical nightmares Israel is forced to confront in real time.

There is a tragic precedent for this elsewhere in the world. In parts of West Africa, particularly during the civil wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia, children were abducted, indoctrinated, and forced into violence. Armed militias trained them to kill, turning them into soldiers and executioners before they were even teenagers. The international community recognised that these children were both victims and, in many cases, active participants in armed conflict. Responsibility was placed firmly on the warlords and commanders who stripped them of their innocence and manipulated them into tools of war. The moral judgment did not fall on those who were forced to defend themselves against child soldiers, but on those who recruited and exploited them. Why then is the moral framework different in Gaza? When children are trained to glorify martyrdom, encouraged to confront soldiers, used to transport weapons, or placed near rocket sites, the horror is no less real. But instead of recognising the dual tragedy, the blame is disproportionately aimed at those responding to the threat, rather than those who created it.

In addition, Hamas has repeatedly stolen aid and sold it to civilians for profit. Israel has implemented restrictions on so-called dual use items to prevent the transfer of materials that can be weaponised, such as certain types of piping, fertilisers, and metals. Critics say this has contributed to malnutrition and suffering. But even this must be viewed in context. When Hamas takes international food shipments and distributes them through its own black-market network, exploiting its own people for power, then any attempt to pin the resulting starvation solely on Israel ignores half the story.

No matter how Israel responds, the outcome is framed through one lens. Children are starving. Children are dying. Therefore, Israel is genocidal. But this ignores the cause and places blame entirely on the response. So again I ask: how exactly is Israel supposed to respond? Can anyone answer that?

Because so far, the only acceptable answer seems to be that Israel should do nothing. That it should open its borders, allow its civilians to be slaughtered, and quietly cease to exist. If that is what the global community expects, then we are not just dealing with a double standard. We are dealing with an antisemitic one. Because no other country would be asked to accept such terms. No other nation would be asked to endure terrorism without response. And no other people would be accused of genocide for trying to survive.

Toward the end of all this, one has to ask why genocide became the dominant accusation so quickly. It appears, increasingly, that the term has been used more as a political weapon than a legal diagnosis. That does not mean we should dismiss the suffering on the ground. But it does mean we should bring a level of honesty, consistency, and legal clarity to the conversation. Because throwing around words like genocide without examining intent, context, and law weakens the very concept itself.

If genocide is proven in a court of law, and if something truly sinister is happening behind the scenes, then of course we should condemn that in the strongest terms possible. Justice demands it. But such conclusions must be based on evidence, legal scrutiny, and the weighing of all sides, not on headlines, emotion, or political pressure. That is the role of a court of law. The court of public opinion, however, is not operating that way. It is not considering the complexity of the situation. It sees an image, a number alongside that image, and repeats the word genocide as though that alone is enough.

For daring to ask questions, for looking at the legal definitions, reading beyond the headlines, and acknowledging the complexity, I have been called a child killer and a “zionazi”. Not for justifying any death, but for refusing to surrender to simplistic narratives. Surely that tells you something. It tells you that outrage has replaced reason, that slogans have replaced law, and that even compassion now demands conformity.

If we care about human rights, then we owe it to ourselves to look deeper than headlines. Let us challenge our emotions with evidence. Let us replace slogans with thought. And let us never confuse the pain of war with the calculated evil that genocide truly is.

Lastly, millions on social media are completely shutting down the other side and calling out the violence. World leaders are speaking out, and cases are being taken to the ICJ. This is the kind of global reaction we should have seen on October 7. Maybe if the world had shown the same urgency and moral clarity when Israeli civilians were massacred, we wouldn’t be where we are now. But as always, the outrage only seems to begin when Israel responds to violence.