COLUMN | Strip-ped Gaza: A question for the Rest of the World (Part III) By Abdulqadir M. Habeeb

The Journey So Far

A moment unfolds that history will remember. A fragile silence settles over Gaza, where screams once pierced the skies and flames consumed what little hope remained. The unthinkable genocide, an inferno against all, including women and children, in plain view of a world that alternated between complicit silence and hesitant whispers, has for now ceased. Yet the silence is tentative.

The so-called “Peace to Prosperity” framework, which sidelined Palestinian sovereignty and allowed unchecked settlement expansion, lingers like a ghost in the rubble. Its legacy? A Gaza further strangled, its people trapped in a limbo of collective punishment long before the latest onslaught began. A multi-generational punishment. Asphyxiation.

Gaza today stands as both a graveyard of unfulfilled dreams and a testament to resilience. The violence that once echoed through its skies has for now given way to an uneasy silence. A fragile truce that feels like a trembling bird caught in a storm. Even now, as mediators scramble to negotiate prisoner swaps and so-called humanitarian pauses, the calculus remains grotesque. How many Palestinian lives equal one Israeli hostage? How many hours of ceasefire justify another shipment of bombs? The scars of a relentless assault on life remain etched into the land and its people.

A Land of Endless Suffering

Children, robbed of innocence before they could understand it, draw pictures of bombed-out homes and blood-red skies. Mothers, hollow-eyed and grief-stricken, whisper prayers to a God who seems silent. Fathers, once pillars of strength, are broken under the weight of an existence defined by siege and survival.

In the shadows of devastation, the people of Gaza mourn their dead, cradle their malnourished children, and sift through the rubble of what was once home. Smoke-stained ruins bear witness to dreams never allowed to flourish. The latest ceasefire, brokered by Qatar and Egypt amid global pressure, offers a fleeting glimmer of hope, but aid trucks crawl in like an afterthought while Israel’s blockade tightens its grip. Over 34,000 reportedly dead, 1.7 million displaced, and 60 percent of homes destroyed. These are not collateral damage. They are policy.

For decades, Gaza has endured as a stage for cyclical tragedy, with its people trapped in an unending cycle of suffering while the world watches. The agreements once celebrated as diplomatic triumphs abandoned Gaza to its fate, trading Palestinian rights for strategic alliances. Today, even those alliances fray as global outrage swells. Students occupy campuses, doctors refuse complicity, and the courageous South Africans drag Israel to The Hague, but so far, power shrugs.

The World’s Complicity

And the world? It debates, postures, and at best, offers aid with one hand while arming the oppressor with the other. Billions of dollars in military support continue to flow, even as calls for restraint are made. Governments wring their hands but profit from arms deals. Some regional powers, complicit in Gaza’s isolation, now feign outrage to placate their streets. How did we, as a global community, allow Gaza to become an open-air prison? A place where the living envy the dead.

Every bomb that fell, every mother clutching her lifeless child, every cry that echoed in the darkness. These are wounds on the conscience of humanity. Yet, against all odds, Gaza endures. Its people endure. Its surviving population is still resilient. They bury their dead with poetry, rebuild shattered schools with bare hands, and livestream their defiance to a world scrolling in real time. Their resilience is both an indictment of the world’s apathy and a testament to an indomitable spirit that refuses to be erased. A nation that refuses to die.

The Echoes of Apartheid and Colonial Wounds

History is no stranger to this kind of oppression. Gaza is today what Sharpeville was in 1960, what Soweto became in 1976, what South Africa remained until the world finally decided that apartheid could no longer be ignored. The parallels are haunting. Walls erected to divide, checkpoints that humiliate, economic systems designed to starve a people into submission, and the persistent lie that the oppressed must negotiate with the boot on their neck.

But it does not end with South Africa. The echoes stretch across Africa—to the Belgian-engineered suffering of the Congo, where King Leopold’s men maimed and slaughtered millions for rubber and ivory, to the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya, where British colonial rule crushed indigenous resistance with unspeakable brutality. The pattern repeats itself: dehumanization, exploitation, and then historical amnesia.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo remains a bleeding nation, its vast mineral wealth a curse rather than a blessing. Multinational corporations plunder its resources, fueling conflict while the world looks away. Just as Gaza is bombed into submission, Congo is looted into destitution. The world’s outrage, selective and fleeting, never quite extends to those who need it most.

South Africa’s Case Against Israel: A Testament to Institutional Memory

Yet, amidst the silence of many nations, South Africa has spoken with a moral clarity that few dare to match. The case it has brought before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Israel is not just an act of solidarity but a reflection of its own historical consciousness. It is the institutional memory of apartheid survivors translated into legal action.

South Africa remembers. It remembers how the world once justified its oppression, how its leaders were branded as terrorists, how its people were killed, displaced, and subjugated under the guise of security. It remembers the global complicity—the UN resolutions vetoed, the weapons supplied, the economic partnerships sustained even as millions suffered.

And because it remembers, it refuses to be silent. The ANC-led government, imperfect as it may be in its own governance, understands what it means to fight an asymmetrical war against a superior military force, to be labeled the aggressor for resisting, to watch its children gunned down in the streets while the world asks for patience.

This is what sets South Africa apart from the world’s great powers, who now stumble over their words when asked if genocide is unfolding in Gaza. Unlike them, South Africa does not need to wait for history’s verdict. It already knows.

The Fallen Heroes

Among the fallen are heroes. Journalists, doctors, and storytellers whose courage illuminated the horrors of war. Ismail al-Ghoul of Al Jazeera, targeted and detained for documenting truth. Hind Khoudary, chronicling famine as Israel weaponizes starvation. Dr. Mohammed Abu Salmiya, murdered while treating children under sniper fire. Wael Dahdouh, the steadfast Al Jazeera correspondent, who lost his wife, children, and grandson in an Israeli airstrike but continued reporting until he too was martyred. Refaat Alareer, the poet and professor who taught a generation of Gazans to dream beyond the blockade, assassinated in his home.

And Ibrahim Abu Eisha, the grandfather who devoted his life to remembering his martyred granddaughter. Every evening, he would sit in the crumbling courtyard of his home and read aloud the stories she once loved, as if her laughter might return with the words. He spoke of her as though she had only gone to the market, as though she might run back at any moment, barefoot and giggling, the wind in her hair. He wrote about the way she twirled in new dresses, about the crinkle of her nose when she tasted something too sour. About the way she once asked him if the sky ever got tired of watching over them. He had told her no. That the sky would always watch. That it would always protect.

He kept her drawings folded neatly in his pocket, fingers tracing each line as though his touch alone could bring her back. He whispered her name like a prayer. He carved her memory into the fabric of his being. Until an air raid struck his home, reducing both man and memory to dust.

Their deaths are more than statistics. They are a devastating reminder of what is lost when humanity fails.

Hope in the Rubble

But even in the rubble, seeds of hope are planted. UNRWA schools, defunded by international donors, still teach algebra in tents. Tech startups harness AI to map destroyed neighborhoods. And in the ashen shadows of shattered homes, Gaza’s people carve defiance into their daily rituals.

Here, Ramadan is not a month but a manifesto. Amidst debris-strewn streets, families gather at communal tables cobbled from broken doors, sharing sahur and iftar meals of lentils, bread, and dates, meager portions stretched thin by collective resolve. Mosques reduced to skeletons host prayers under open skies, rows of worshippers kneeling on carpets salvaged from ruins. Children, their laughter tinged with the weight of survival, pass cups of mint tea brewed over fires fed by rubble.

Every scrap of sweetness, a shared date or a spoonful of apricot jam, becomes an act of sacred rebellion. These streets, once echoing with screams, now hum with whispered prayers and the clatter of shared plates. Even here, where hunger gnaws and grief lingers like smoke, Gaza’s people refuse to let isolation erase their humanity. They fast together, feast together, and in the raw simplicity of divided bread, they mock the arithmetic of their oppressors. Their resilience is not inspiration porn for a guilty world. It is a mirror held to its conscience.

With a literacy rate among the highest globally, Gaza’s people continue to educate, inspire, and believe. Their children’s laughter, defiant against despair, is an anthem of survival. Each step forward, however small, is a declaration. Their spirit will not be caged, their land will not be erased, and their hearts beat for freedom.

A Call for True Justice

The ceasefire must not be a prelude to more bloodshed but a foundation for justice and lasting peace. Let this be the moment the world awakens, not to rehearse empty slogans but to dismantle apartheid, lift the siege, and let Gaza breathe. History will remember what we did or failed to do when Gaza needed us most. Let us ensure the story we write is one of hope, justice, and unwavering humanity.

“Posterity shall vindicate the just.”

Abdulqadir M. Habeeb Project Management and Innovations Consultant writes from Abuja, Nigeria. He can be reached via habeebajebor@gmail.com