The question of why and how Israel’s genocide persisted for so long despite repeated warnings and full knowledge of its unfolding is a question that must not slip from public conscience, writes Toufic Haddad. Nov 2, ‘26
To my knowledge, the first public, English-language warning that a genocide was unfolding in the Gaza Strip came from Israeli genocide scholar Raz Segal, five days after the events of 7 October 2023. Amnesty Internationalconfirmed Segal's conclusions fourteen months later, by which time at least 40,000 more Palestinians were killed.
The Amnesty Report still failed, however, to compel Western governments to act, despite being the first of its kind the organisation issued in the midst of a genocide.
Instead, the live-stream slaughter continued broadcasting for another ten months when a ceasefire finally came into effect in October 2025. By that time, at least 72,000 Palestinian were killed, and virtually all of Gaza’s urban infrastructure had been transformed into rubble.
The question of why and how Israel’s genocide persisted for so long despite repeated warnings and full knowledge of its unfolding is a question that must not slip from public conscience.
Indeed, it is the proverbial 800-pound gorilla in the room that world powers pretend isn’t there, and the continued failure to explain its presence tempts others to repeat similar crimes elsewhere.
However, the danger of the genocide resuming full-throttled in Gaza is also very real, particularly after Israeli and US mid-term elections. Almost daily, Israel’s politicians and military brass vow to complete their ethnic cleansing of Gaza, and bicker over whether the slaughter they already committed there was enough.
The daily toll of those killed also reminds us that the ceasefire itself was never observed.
Collectively, these factors remind us that the forces that committed the genocide, protected it and pushed it forward, are all still very much alive today, and have used the passage of time to reposition.
Ending the genocide
So how does the solidarity movement get rid of the gorilla, especially given that Western democratic institutions and representatives have proven themselves to be so spineless, paralysed and complicit?
To its credit, the movement did an impressive job shining a flashlight into the institutional undercarriage of Western capitalism, trying to discover what made the killing machine run.
Of course, its work was assisted by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, whose longstanding work documents where the bloody shoes that stomped all over Gaza were initially purchased and tread.
UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese also produced an important report that mapped key political-economic connections running between government, the private sector and universities.
The report admitted, however, that it could only document “the tip of the iceberg” and warned that complicity around the genocide would not end “without holding the private sector accountable, including its executives."
This is precisely what lies behind the US State Department’s recent declaration of sanctions against the International Criminal Court (ICC). This extraordinary measure was not just another Trump administration swipe against multilateralism but was a specific attempt to protect US citizens and corporations from possible future prosecution.