By Kingsley Omose
Following the October 17, 2023 explosion at Gaza’s Al-Ahli Hospital where 470 displaced Palestinians sheltering on the grounds of the hospital were killed in an explosion, strenuous efforts were made by Joe Biden, Rishi Sunak, and Israeli authorities to deny that the Oct. 17 explosions were deliberately targeted by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). The IDF even released video footage in a bid to prove that an errant Hamas missile—not an Israeli strike—was responsible for the explosion at Gaza’s Al-Ahli Hospital grounds. The narratives, hastily constructed, gave the false impression that hospitals were not IDF targets.
What followed was far worse.
Soon after, all hospitals in Gaza were declared legitimate military targets by the IDF under the sweeping claim that Hamas command and control centres operated beneath them. With that declaration, hospital bombings ceased to be accidental; they became official policy. The result? According to the World Health Organization, 94% of all hospitals in Gaza are now damaged or destroyed. This cannot be dismissed as collateral damage. It is the outcome of a systematic strategy of dismantling Gaza’s last remaining civilian lifelines under the pretext of rooting out militants.
This strategy bears a chilling resemblance to historical patterns of systematic civilian targeting, most infamously embodied during the Holocaust. Then, as now, essential infrastructure—hospitals, synagogues, schools, and entire neighbourhoods—were not just caught in the crossfire but deliberately destroyed to erase the social and cultural backbone of a people. The dehumanization and demonization that justified such acts then are mirrored now in the portrayal of Gaza’s civilian population as expendable or complicit, thus paving the way for tactics that would otherwise be unconscionable under international law.
The 697 attacks on healthcare facilities took place while medical personnel worked tirelessly to save the wounded—many of whom were already victims of IDF airstrikes and sniping—and while displaced families sought refuge in hospital courtyards. The WHO now warns that only 2,000 hospital beds remain available for a population of over 2 million people. These numbers are not the collateral of war; they are the metrics of a slow and deliberate undoing of a society’s ability to care for itself.
A similar pattern is now unfolding at the few humanitarian food centres operating in the south of Gaza. These centres—set up by the Israeli and American-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and guarded by American contractors and the IDF—have become sites of chaos, desperation, and death. In a cruel twist, more than 400 aid distribution centres run by UNRWA and other organizations have been sidelined, their access restricted in favour of the four GHF food centres. The blockade, starvation, and control over food mirrors another dark historical tactic: the weaponization of deprivation, used by oppressive regimes to starve resistance into submission.
It is bad enough that starvation is now the norm in Gaza due to over 90 days of complete blockade on aid and food. It is worse that the aged, infirm, widows, orphaned children, and women cannot access food because of the conditions around these militarized food points. And it is unspeakable that credible reports now confirm shootings and killings at these very food centres—with over 30 Palestinians killed and more than 200 injured in the most recent attack.
Just as the world was initially told that hospital bombings were the work of Hamas, the IDF now claims that these deaths at food centres are the result of Hamas activity. But this narrative is falling apart. The pattern is repeating: denial, followed by escalation, followed by normalization of violence.
This is no longer about military necessity—it is about domination, degradation, and demoralization of an entire population. The pattern mirrors historical atrocity: dehumanize, isolate, deprive, then destroy the infrastructure that sustains life, while the perpetrators insist on their innocence. These tactics echo the worst chapters of the 20th century, not least the systematic deprivations leading up to the Holocaust, where starvation, isolation, and destruction of medical care preceded industrial extermination.
Gaza is not a battlefield. It is a confined population of over 2 million civilians, now being subjected to starvation, denied healthcare, and targeted at aid centres. The sheer scale and methodical nature of these actions demand that we recognize what is unfolding—not merely as a conflict, but as a humanitarian catastrophe with patterns all too familiar in history.
The international community can no longer afford to look away or hide behind the thin veil of security rhetoric. The longer this continues, the more it reveals itself not as defense—but as systemic destruction masked as military strategy.
Kingsley Omose is a public analyst and writer of conscience
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