A brutal Israeli airstrike on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis claimed at least 20 lives, including five journalists: Hussam al-Masri, Mariam Abu Dagga, Mohammed Salama, Moaz Abu Taha, and Ahmed Abu Aziz. They died for doing what every democracy claims to value—telling the truth. Israel dismissed it as a “tragic mishap.” But what we have seen in the conduct of this preventable war by the State of Israel is that impunity, rather than accountability, has become the precedent.
Since October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel and set off this war, Gaza has become the deadliest place on earth for journalists. By August 2025, the UN counted 242 Palestinian journalists killed, while other press groups place the number as high as 274—making it the deadliest conflict for journalists in modern history.
Aid workers are also targets. In 2024 alone, 383 humanitarians were killed worldwide—nearly half in Gaza. Already this year, at least 173 more aid workers have died in the Strip. To report, to heal, to feed, to save—the very vocations that build life—are punished with death by the Israeli Defence Force.
The overall Palestinian death toll is staggering. Gaza’s Health Ministry reports more than 60,000 Palestinians killed since the war began; independent counts suggest 63,000–84,000 deaths by early 2025. Gaza, once a city of vibrant life, has been reduced to rubble, famine, and mass graves. Children are buried with their toys; mothers with their infants; whole neighborhoods erased.
More Than Hamas, More Than “Self-Defense”
It is convenient for Israel and its Western allies to point fingers at Hamas. Hamas bears responsibility for its atrocities, yes. But Hamas did not arise from nothing. Behind this war lies a deeper truth: decades of dispossession, denial of Palestinian statehood, blockades, and daily indignities of occupation.
The United States and Western governments are not neutral arbiters. For decades, they have justified Israeli military action as “self-defense.” Even in the face of famine, bombed hospitals, and tens of thousands of civilian deaths, they issue vague condemnations while still arming Israel. This complicity makes the current genocide not only Israel’s doing but a shared moral failure of the global order, led by the U.S. and other Western powers.
Pope Leo’s Prophetic Voice
In this hour of darkness, Pope Leo has become the clearest global voice for peace. Just days before the Nasser Hospital massacre, he led the world in a day of prayer and fasting for peace. His words echo those of Pope Pius XII on the eve of World War II:
“Nothing is lost with peace. All may be lost with war.”
In 1939, Pius XII warned: “It is by the force of reason, not the force of arms, that justice makes its way. Empires not founded on justice are not blessed by God. Politics divorced from morality betrays those who promote it.” The world ignored him. War followed. The Holocaust and Hiroshima were its bitter harvest.
Today, the same prophetic warning rises from Rome. Will we ignore it again?
Gaza: Humanity and God on Trial
What Israel is doing in Gaza cannot be justified as security or self-defense; it is collective punishment and vengeance, pure and simple. It is, in effect, an Amalekite solution—a campaign of total annihilation. Nothing and no one is spared; yet the world, enabled by a superpower led by an unpredictable president, watches helplessly.
This silence is not neutral. It is complicity. I call it “silencide”—the killing power of silence in the face of genocide. The crime is not only in the dropping of bombs but in the cowardice of governments who mutter words of “restraint” while funding destruction.
Gaza is where humanity itself is on trial. It is where God is on trial. Can we still claim a moral order if we allow an entire people to be erased while journalists, doctors, and children perish before our eyes?
The Gaza war reveals more than one conflict. It unmasks the collapse of the global system of justice and peace. Neoliberal capitalism—obsessed with profit, addicted to weapons, wars, and structural violence, indifferent to the poor—has created an architecture of violence. In Gaza, this system shows its ultimate logic: the manufacturing of death for the poor, the vulnerable, and the dispossessed.
Yet, even now, another way is possible. Peace is not a naïve dream. It is the only real option. War devours. Peace builds. War isolates. Peace reconciles.
There is still a path forward for Israel and Palestine. But it must rest on truth and justice, not lies and extermination. It must be founded on recognition of Palestinian dignity and rights, not endless cycles of revenge.
A Call to the World
Pope Leo has no armies. But he has something stronger: the moral power to awaken our conscience. His cry reminds us that silence is betrayal, indifference is complicity, and neutrality in the face of genocide is a lie and acquiescence.
The time for outrage alone is past. We must act. We must demand an immediate ceasefire, unfettered humanitarian access, and the beginning of a genuine peace process grounded in justice for both peoples. Western governments must stop arming Israel’s onslaught. International courts must not look away from accountability.
Above all, we must choose to believe that peace—real peace—between Israelis and Palestinians is possible. A peace of equals, not conquerors and conquered. A peace that gives Palestinians a homeland, security, and dignity, a peace that frees Israelis from the endless spiral of militarism and fear, and terror.
The Last Word
The prophetic voice of Pope Leo cannot be dismissed, just as Pius XII’s could not. To ignore him now is to choose war, to choose death, to choose shame.
War destroys everything. Peace and love build up all peoples.
The world still has a chance. But it is vanishing fast. The bombs that fell on Nasser Hospital are more than shrapnel; they are a verdict. Unless we act, the verdict will stand: guilty of indifference, guilty of silence, guilty of genocide.
For the sake of Gaza, for the sake of Israel, for the sake of our common humanity, let us finally choose the only way left: the way of peace, and Gospel of non-violence where all God’s children—Jews and Muslims, Palestinians and Israelis—can sing the hymn of love: “We are family.”
