As the Bodies Pile Up, the Israeli Public Remains Indifferent to the Daily Killing in Gaza - Haaretz Editorial - Haaretz.com
Headline after headline: "34 killed near Gaza port, including women and children" (June 30, 2025); "509 killed near Gaza aid distribution centers since late May" (July 4); "80 killed, including eight seeking aid" (July 8); "10 children killed waiting for nutritional supplements in Deir al-Balah" (July 10); "70 dead, including 28 waiting for humanitarian aid" (July 12); and "Six children killed at water distribution site" (July 13).
Since the end of the cease-fire on March 18, at least 7,261 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry. The data is available.
If only the members of the Israeli public would bother to show an interest, they would easily be able to calculate the IDF's daily crop in Gaza: several dozen killed per day, most of them innocent civilians, including children – but the public isn't interested.
Such disregard isn't solely the fault of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his defense minister, Israel Katz, or IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir. Or of his Kahanist national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, or "Death Eater" Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
- Family of 13 killed in IDF strike in Gaza filmed trying to survive under rubble
- IDF soldiers ordered to shoot deliberately at unarmed Gazans waiting for humanitarian aid
- Behind the scenes of Haaretz's Gaza exposé that Netanyahu called a 'blood libel'
- Israeli incitement to genocide in Gaza goes mainstream
They may be the primary responsible parties, but it's impossible to deny that the indifference is collective.
That may be what happens when one gives in to fear and internalizes the evil lie that "there are no innocents in Gaza." The depth of that lie is proven by the indifference to the deaths of thousands of babies and children.
What is more innocent than a baby? But not in the view of the indifferent Israeli conscience.
The apathy isn't even dispelled by the testimony of soldiers describing the "total loss of purity of arms" or the intentional shooting at Palestinians to disperse them near aid distribution sites, even when there is no danger present (Nir Hasson, Yaniv Kubovitch and Bar Peleg, Haaretz, June 27), or daily headlines about children killed on their way to baby-care clinics or while waiting to obtain water.
A truck carrying an armored personnel carrier (APC) drives on the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza border, July 15, 2025.Credit: Amir Cohen/ REUTERS
Or the fact that Israel is blocking essential medical equipment from entering the Gaza Strip – operating room tables, scalpels, components for ultrasound machines – on the worn-out claim that they could serve Hamas.
And this is in spite of reports that Gaza's health system is collapsing. (Out of 36 medical institutions there before the war, 22 are completely out of service after being struck or on the orders of the military).
These are bureaucratic decisions with lethal consequences, over which no one is being brought to justice, not even in the court of public opinion, because no one is asking.
Instead, they are promoting delusional discourse over the crazy idea from the offices of Netanyahu and Katz about a "humanitarian city" on the ruins of Rafah – a sanitized term for a concentration camp for the purpose of population transfer.
This war must end, due to the hostages – over which there is a public consensus – but no less so because of the harm Israel is inflicting upon Gaza. We have to stop the mass killing of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
The above article is Haaretz's lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in Israel.