Gaza Under Siege: The Implications of Genocide for Africa

Nazier Paulsen

On 10 August 2025, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended his government’s latest military proposal, a plan to seize what remains of Gaza City under the pretext of bringing the war to an end. The United Nations immediately warned that the plan would produce “another calamity of starvation and destruction” in a territory already on the brink of total collapse.

For nearly a year, Gaza has been subjected to one of the most devastating military campaigns of the 21st century. Entire neighbourhoods have been obliterated, critical infrastructure levelled, and basic services destroyed. What Netanyahu calls “the best and fastest way to end the war” is, in truth, the final phase of a genocide, a deliberate and systematic attempt to destroy a people’s ability to exist.

What is unfolding in Gaza is not a conventional war between equal forces. It is the dismantling of civilian life through siege, bombardment, and deprivation. The latest reports from humanitarian agencies paint a catastrophic picture: more than 80 percent of Gaza’s population is displaced, with many forced to shelter in overcrowded, unsanitary camps without clean water or medical care. Rates of malnutrition have soared to unprecedented levels. In northern Gaza, children are dying from hunger-related complications in full view of the world.

The UN’s humanitarian coordinator has warned that famine is now a reality, not a looming threat, as food supplies have been systematically blocked or destroyed. Malnutrition has weakened immune systems, making the population — particularly infants and the elderly — far more susceptible to disease. This is not collateral damage; this is the deliberate use of starvation as a weapon of war.

The situation is compounded by Israel’s targeted attacks on journalists and aid workers, acts that further expose the culture of impunity driving this military campaign. Earlier, five Al Jazeera journalists were targeted and murdered by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF), amongst several other Palestinian journalists who have been killed while documenting the war since October 2023, joining a death toll of reporters that is among the highest in modern conflict history.

Aid workers, including those attached to internationally recognised humanitarian organisations, have been targeted despite clearly marked vehicles and coordinates shared with the Israeli military. These actions are not isolated accidents. They are part of a consistent pattern of silencing witnesses and obstructing the delivery of life-saving assistance to the population. The killing of those tasked with telling the truth and saving lives is designed to ensure that atrocities continue unrecorded and unpunished.

For Africans and the wider Global South, the implications of Gaza’s destruction should be deeply alarming. It demonstrates, in the clearest possible terms, that imperialism remains alive, aggressive, and unrestrained. The message is chilling: if a small population can be subjected to near-total annihilation in plain sight. With little more than symbolic condemnation from the so-called international community, then no vulnerable people are safe.

This includes us. Africa’s own history is filled with examples of imperial powers intervening violently to protect resources, secure strategic territories, or crush resistance movements. The genocide in Gaza is a reminder that the machinery of domination and dispossession is still operational, ready to be deployed wherever resistance threatens imperial interests.

The destruction of Gaza is also a profound indictment of the post-World War 2 global order, one that claims to be built on human rights, the rule of law, and the protection of civilians in armed conflict. In reality, it has revealed itself as a system where these principles are selectively applied, depending on the identity of the victims and the political alliances of the perpetrators.

This hypocrisy is not new, but in Gaza it has been laid bare. Political vetoes have either paralysed the very institutions designed to prevent genocide and mass atrocities or have issued empty statements while the situation worsens. The so-called guardians of international law have chosen complicity over confrontation, allowing a member state to commit crimes against humanity without meaningful consequence.

For the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), solidarity with the Palestinian people is not symbolic. It is rooted in a shared history of oppression, resistance, and the understanding that liberation struggles are interconnected.

The barricades in Soweto, the defiance of Sharpeville, and the collective suffering under apartheid connect us to the rubble of Gaza, Rafah, and Jabalia. Both are stories of dispossession enforced by military might, both are stories of racialised oppression, and both demand that we speak out and act. Gaza’s tragedy is not an isolated humanitarian crisis; it is part of a global system of exploitation and violence that the EFF is committed to dismantling.

We cannot ignore the scale of the human cost in Gaza. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been killed, tens of thousands more have been injured, and many are facing lifelong disabilities in a territory where the health system has been deliberately destroyed.

The survivors face a future of displacement, hunger, and trauma if they survive at all. The deliberate targeting of water infrastructure has left millions without safe drinking water, increasing the risk of deadly outbreaks of cholera and other diseases. This is a war not just on people, but on the possibility of life itself.

The genocide in Gaza also forces us to confront an uncomfortable truth: the international order will not save us. It will not protect the powerless from the powerful. The global silence and inaction over Gaza should awaken Africans and the Global South to the urgency of building our own systems of mutual defence and solidarity.

Currently, the DRC, Sudan, Somalia, and Libya remain trapped under the grip of neo-colonial imperialism, a system designed to keep Africans subjugated and their nations treated as mere sites for exploitation and resource extraction. If we fail to respond to Gaza, if we choose to treat Gaza as someone else’s tragedy, we are complicit in setting the precedent for the furtherment of our own future subjugation, and no one will come to save us. 

The EFF, therefore, calls once again for immediate, concrete actions. We demand the imposition of sanctions against Israel, the suspension of all trade and diplomatic relations, and the full boycott of Israeli goods, services, and institutions.

We call on African governments to withdraw their recognition of Israel until the siege of Gaza ends and the Palestinian people are granted full self-determination. It cannot be that African countries continue to engage with Israel or vote in their favour in the United Nations. 

If we allow Gaza to be erased, we continue to signal to the world that the genocide of small nations is acceptable if the perpetrator is powerful enough. The EFF will never accept such a world. We stand shoulder to shoulder with the Palestinian people, not as passive sympathisers but as comrades in the liberation struggle.

Gaza’s destruction is not just their story, but a mirror reflecting the fragility of our own freedom. To defend Palestine is to defend Africa, to protect the Global South, to defend the very idea that all human beings have the right to live free from annihilation.

* Nazier Paulsen is an EFF Member of Parliament.

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL, Independent Media or The African.