On Sunday, Israeli warplanes struck the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, one of the last functioning medical centers in southern Gaza. At least twenty people were killed in the assault, among them five journalists who had rushed to document the devastation. The strike followed the now-familiar pattern of the Israeli military: a first missile tears into the building, and as rescuers and reporters rush in, a second “double tap” ensures they too are buried beneath the rubble. Israel’s military calls it a “tragic mishap,” promising an internal investigation. But when hospitals are reduced to mass graves and journalists are systematically targeted, these are not accidents. They are tactics.
The figures speak for themselves. More than 62,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war began. Over 80 percent of those killed were civilians and nearly half are women and children. Hundreds of journalists have been slain, a number unprecedented in modern conflict. Each statistic is a story buried, a voice silenced, a family erased. The hospital bombing is not an isolated event; it is the logical extension of a campaign of annihilation that turns every ambulance, every school, every refugee camp into a target.
While the blood still soaked Gaza’s hospital corridors, Donald Trump stood before cameras and declared that the war would have a “conclusive ending” in two to three weeks. His statement was delivered with the cold pragmatism of a businessman announcing a closing deal. But what does a “conclusive ending” mean in the language of imperialism? It means giving Israel the green light to finish the work of genocide, to wipe Gaza from the map in a timeline that suits the electoral calendar of Washington. For Trump, as for Biden before him, Palestinian lives are disposable bargaining chips in a strategy of regional domination.
The war is not confined to Gaza. In recent days, Israel has extended its fire to Yemen, striking targets in Sana’a in retaliation against Houthi missile launches. The message is unmistakable: Israel, backed by U.S. power and aid, is prepared to expand its offensive across the region. This is not defense. It is aggression. It is imperial control, enforced through firepower and starvation.
The international community’s condemnations pile up, but words without action are nothing but alibis. Human rights organizations and press associations issue their statements of outrage, yet the bombs continue to fall. The International Criminal Court has already issued warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Still, Israeli jets take off daily, their fuel lines tied directly to U.S. weapons shipments and taxpayer dollars.
What we are witnessing is not a tragedy unfolding far away. It is a genocide financed and shielded by the governments under which we live. Every missile that flattens a hospital in Gaza is made possible by U.S. military aid. Behind every journalist silenced under the rubble stands not just Netanyahu, but the imperialist governments who arm and fund Israel, and regional regimes that police their own people to prevent the solidarity that could break the siege.
What Israel brands as tragedy, the world is turning into a rallying cry. In Barcelona, dozens of ships are preparing to set sail in the largest humanitarian flotilla in history, bound for Gaza with aid and solidarity. The fleet, scheduled to depart on August 31, is a direct challenge to Israel’s blockade, a reminder that the world will not stand idle while Palestinians are starved and slaughtered. Across the globe, from London to Jakarta, from New York to Cape Town, tens of thousands are marching in the streets, demanding an end to the genocide. These mobilizations show that, while governments arm Israel, masses of ordinary people reject complicity.
There is no neutrality in this moment. To stay silent is to be complicit. To reduce Gaza to a headline, a spectacle of horror to be pitied and forgotten, is to participate in its erasure. The struggle of the Palestinian people is not abstract; it is a struggle against the same system that starves workers, expels migrants, and wages endless wars across the globe.
Trump promises a “conclusive ending.” But the only ending that can bring justice is not the silencing of Gaza through rubble and famine. It is the end of U.S. imperialist support for Israel’s genocidal state. It is the end of the impunity that allows war criminals to pose as defenders of “security.” And it is the beginning of a movement rooted in the international working class, one capable of breaking the chain of complicity that stretches from Washington to Tel Aviv.
Hospitals turned to rubble, journalists buried in ashes—this is what imperialism calls security. To the world’s rulers, it may look like a “mishap.” To us, it is a call to action.
