Gaza: the genocide continues

"Not only are we witnessing the best-documented genocide in history, but also the only one that is being broadcast live. In the past, it was hidden and denied by the criminals, and now the soldiers themselves are systematically doing so through social media. No one can say they did not know what was happening. And it is the genocide that reflects worst on the North Atlantic for its complicity, because there continues to be numerous collaborations and complicities with Israel, even though ceasing to do so is no longer just a moral and human issue, but a legal obligation established by the International Court of Justice on 19 July 2024. Any institution, organisation or state that maintains commercial or diplomatic relations with Israel is violating international law."

This was pointed out by Jorge Ramos Tolosa, PhD in Contemporary History and professor at the University of Valencia (UV), in his introduction to the opening panel of the conference 'Palestine: 75 years of occupation, resistance and dignity', organised at the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) by its Development Cooperation Centre (CCD). At the conference, prestigious journalists, experts and leaders of humanitarian associations publicly demanded an immediate and definitive ceasefire in Gaza, unrestricted humanitarian access, reconstruction focused on children and the mandatory accountability of those responsible for a genocide that has completely devastated the Gaza Strip -97% of schools and 94% of hospitals damaged or destroyed (according to Save The Children) - and which, as of 6 January (data from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, UNRWA), had killed 71,391 people (more than 50% of whom were women, children and the elderly) and injured 171,279, 42,000 of whom suffered permanent sequelae and more than 5,000 of whom suffered amputations.

'The European Union remains Israel's main trading partner today'

And in this 'wave of cruelty', according to investigative journalist and humanitarian crisis specialist Patricia Simón, 'it is not only represented by the far right, but those who have made Israeli impunity possible over all these years and the current genocide have been Western governments of different political persuasions, because we must not forget that the European Union remains Israel's main trading partner today'.

Simón, who has questioned 'whether we are really a democracy when we cannot get our government to comply with sanctions, as was done with Russia, for example,' has placed special emphasis on the need to 'put an end to the arms trade,' noting that 'although the Spanish government is one of the most critical, it has not complied either.'

483 people killed and 922 wounded since an 'insufficient and unfulfilled' ceasefire

Because 'the genocide continues', as all the panellists vehemently insist, without any doubt. It did not end with the 'insufficient and unfulfilled' ceasefire. Not surprisingly, since then, 483 more people have been killed and 922 wounded (UNRWA) and 'Israel continues to deliberately impose living conditions that lead to the slow death of the Palestinian population in Gaza,' said Ignacio Gay, president of Amnesty International in the Valencian Community, who accuses Israel of "greatly limiting the entry of supplies, the restoration of essential services for survival or the entry of wastewater treatment equipment; expelling the population from their homes and farmland and preventing their return; destroying wells, desalination plants, agricultural, industrial and fishing areas; and hindering or preventing them from receiving medical treatment outside Gaza ', in short,' establishing conditions of existence aimed at the destruction of the population".

Between 90% and 96% of the water is undrinkable, 46% of families prepare food by burning rubbish, and there are obstacles and vetoes for all 37 humanitarian organisations present

The data on the current situation is dramatic. 77% of people suffer from high levels of food insecurity (children and pregnant women are at risk of catastrophic malnutrition), 46% of families prepare food by burning rubbish accumulated in streets and shelters, between 90% and 96% of the water is undrinkable, and the 37 prestigious humanitarian organisations present face constant obstacles and vetoes.

Not surprisingly, UNRWA, which has suffered the highest number of workers killed in a conflict in the entire history of the United Nations (382), is currently not allowed to bring aid into Israel. 'We have to do it through third parties, because Israeli Government Employees have been forbidden from having any contact with us, and obviously, without dealing with them, we cannot officially bring in aid,' explains María Zarauza of UNRWA.

In fact, "one of the conditions Israel is demanding to revoke the denial of permits is the names of the workers' family members, whom you obviously do not want to put at risk. Today it is Gaza, and tomorrow it will be another part of the world. This is the consequence of not protecting international law," she laments.

The economy of death

Along the same lines as María, Noor Amar Lamarty, a legal activist and expert on gender in Islamic contexts, has pointed out that, at this moment, 'we are defining the society of the coming decades and the kind of human beings we are going to be,' while urging a 'necessary revision of international law' because 'the methods of annihilation are being refined.'

Conceptually following in the footsteps of Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories and one of the world's most authoritative voices in the defence of human rights, on the economics of genocide, which analyses the benefits of the death of a people at the international level, Lamarty has criticised the 'economy of death' and the idea that 'for us to live in peace, others must live under threat'.

'Human rights are not just for people we like,' he said, criticising 'the transformation of uncomfortable truths into opinions'. Genocide is not a matter of opinion or debate; it is a proven fact.

Javier Valenzuela: 'This genocide is a betrayal of Jewish culture'

'No one justifies Israel's barbarity anymore,' said Javier Valenzuela, a correspondent for El País in the Middle East for decades, who insisted on reminding us that 'this did not start in October 2023' with the murder of more than 1,200 people by Palestinian armed groups, mainly Hamas (Amnesty International), He gave a historical overview of the crisis since the birth of Israel in 1948.

'I was optimistic at the time of the agreement between Arafat and Rabin, because it offered a reasonable solution,' said Valenzuela in relation to the Oslo Accords (1993) in which Israel recognised the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) as the representative of the Palestinian people; which in turn recognised Israel's right to exist; and, pending a final Agreement, the pre-1967 border between the two states was restored, 'but the assassination of Rabin by a Jewish extremist', the kahanisation of Israeli society - an ideology born out of Moshe Kahane, founder of the Kach Party, assassinated in New York in 1990, who advocated that 'Jewish violence in defence of Jewish interests is never wrong' - and the dehumanisation of the Palestinian population in the eyes of the Israeli population - Yoav Gallant, former Israeli Minister of Defence, declared that in Gaza 'there will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, because we are fighting human animals and we will act accordingly' - have made the situation dramatic.

A 'great admirer of Jewish culture,' Valenzuela, who acknowledges that the Holocaust 'bleeds him every day,' cannot understand how 'the victims can be the next executioners.' For him, the current genocide 'is a betrayal of Jewish culture. If the victims of the Holocaust were to rise...,' he says with astonishment.

Despite everything, Valenzuela, who personally interviewed Mandela in the mid-1990s and has pointed out that 'Palestine needs an intelligent leader like him', has in turn expressed his disagreement with the "hackneyed phrase that no one is doing anything. Many people have done and are doing many things. Millions of us have not forgotten the Palestinians. And we already won the battle against apartheid in South Africa... and now it's time to win this one. '

A devastating infanticide

And it's time because, in addition, a devastating' infanticide" is being committed in this conflict, as Lamarty has pointed out and as demonstrated by the chilling data from Save the Children provided by Rodrigo Hernández Primo.

"More than 20,000 children have been killed, at least 42,011 wounded, and thousands of them are still missing under the rubble. 1.1 million children - 2.2 million people were living in Gaza, and the average age is 18 - remain unprotected. At least one child has been killed every hour for almost 23 months. 58,000 children have lost one or both parents, and 1,009 babies under the age of one have been killed...", recalls Save the Children.

In this brutal context, moreover, 'the war has disrupted all aspects of child development. One particularly important aspect is education, because a country without education has no future. And 625,000 children have not been to school for more than two years.'

West Bank: the forgotten crisis

But the reality is not only desperate in Gaza, whose drama is overshadowing the serious deterioration of the situation in the West Bank, where Amnesty International reports that "Israeli military operations and settler attacks have led to the killing of more than 1,000 Palestinians since October 2023 and a 90% escalation in the use of lethal force, with military operations in Jenin, Tulkarem, Nablus and Tubas causing forced displacement, destruction of infrastructure and collective punishment."

Accountability is essential

Is all this drama having any consequences? Will the genocide in Gaza go completely unpunished? Right now, everything points to that, and as has been repeated throughout the day, 'without accountability there will be no justice, and there can be no aspiration for peace without justice'.

'The Trump administration's plan is completely insufficient,' said Ignacio Gay of Amnesty International. 'The Israeli army must withdraw completely, and that plan does not mention justice or bringing those responsible to court. Furthermore, when it comes to making decisions, the Palestinian people must be consulted.'

82% of Israeli Jews are in favour of the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, and 50%... are in favour of its annihilation

However, the greatest tragedy may not even be what is happening in Gaza, but the desire for it to happen. In this regard, Ignacio Álvarez, Full Professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), has presented a survey conducted by the Pennsylvania State University (United States) in March 2025.

In it, 82% of Israeli Jews were in favour of the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, 56% in favour of the deportation of the two million Palestinians with Israeli citizenship... and 50% in favour of the annihilation of the Palestinians in Gaza.

This is the reality of a genocide that 'not only continues in Gaza, but also in the West Bank,' as Bushra Khalidi of Oxfam Intermón acknowledged in a live broadcast from there. 'Thank you for not letting us fall into oblivion. Thank you for your support. Don't stop talking about what is happening in Palestine. We need it.'

You can view the videos and presentations from the conference here.