An appeal from Sami Khader, MA’AN’s director-general. The MA’AN Development Centre was established in January 1989.

To all people of conscience, to trade unions, civil society movements, faith-based groups, elected representatives, humanitarian actors and every individual, collective, and institution that upholds human rights, dignity, and the sanctity of life.

We reach out to you with hearts shattered by grief, suffocated by injustice and inflamed by the unbearable silence of the world. A genocide is unfolding, relentless, systematic, and deliberate, before our very eyes in Gaza.

Every single day more than 100-120 lives are violently extinguished, most of them children and women. Entire families are being annihilated, buried beneath the rubble of makeshift tents they believed would provide shelter. There are no safe spaces. There are no sanctuaries. There is only the chilling anticipation of the next airstrike.

As of May 18, 2025, the ongoing genocide in Gaza, which began on October 7, 2023, has resulted in significant casualties.

• Deaths: At least 53,272 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
• Injuries: Approximately 120,673 Palestinians have been wounded.

Recent escalations, particularly under Israel’s “Operation Gideon’s Chariots”, have intensified the conflict. Over the past 72 hours alone, Israeli airstrikes have resulted in hundreds of Palestinian deaths, with at least 146 fatalities reported on 17 May and more than 120 on 18 May.

Since 2 March alone, more than 3300 Palestinians have been killed and more than 3500 wounded. Thousands of homes have been obliterated. Hospitals. those final beacons of hope, have been targeted and reduced to ashes. Two days ago, we lost a cherished colleague, a brave and compassionate woman, Nuha Alsultan, who worked tirelessly in our protection program. She was killed along with her four young children, her husband, her father-in-law, and her brother-in-law. massacred in their tent.

We give thanks for the miraculous survival of our second colleague, Zarifa Abu Ghazaleh, and her family, who were pulled from the debris. But our sorrow deepens as we grieve the loss of 11 of our own humanitarian colleagues, murdered in the line of duty. These are not statistics. These are human lives. cut short while serving others. This is not collateral damage. This is the intentional, systematic erasure of humanity. The destruction defies comprehension:

• More than 350,000 housing units have been completely or partially destroyed.
• More than 120,000 public buildings, including schools, libraries, mosques, and community centres. have been obliterated.
• Seventy percent of Gaza’s infrastructure. including water networks, sewage systems, electricity grids, and communication lines, has been reduced to rubble.
• Twenty-five out of 35 hospitals are either destroyed or nonfunctional.
• All universities and a vast number of schools have been demolished.
• Seventy percent of Gaza’s trees have been uprooted. Parks are levelled. Even cemeteries have been bombed.

The war has left behind more than 55 million tonnes of debris and toxic rubble, turning Gaza into an unlivable wasteland. According to UNICEF, 97% of Gaza’s water is now unfit for human consumption. There is no clean water, not even to wash a newborn baby. Each day, 130,000 cubic metres of untreated sewage are discharged into the sea because the pumping stations are destroyed, and there is no fuel to run them. More than 400,000 tonnes of solid waste are piling up in streets and displacement camps, breeding disease and despair. More than 84% of artesian wells and 500,000 metres of power lines have been destroyed.

People are dying, not just from bombs, but from starvation and thirst. Since 2 March, not a single truck carrying food or humanitarian aid has been allowed to enter. This is not a siege. It is the use of starvation as a weapon of war, a flagrant crime under international law.

More than 66,000 children are suffering from acute malnutrition. Ninety-three percent of Gaza’s population faces severe food insecurity. Gaza is being strangled into silence. by bombardment, by famine, by thirst, by abandonment.

We issue this urgent call to every conscience that has not yet surrendered:

Do not look away.

Raise your voice.

Pressure your governments.

Demand an end to this genocide.

This is no longer a humanitarian crisis. It is a war on humanity itself.

To stand with Gaza is not to take sides in a conflict. It is to defend the core values of civilisation:

The right to life.

The right to safety.

The right to feed your child.

The right to bury your dead with dignity.

What was the crime of more than 18,000 children and more than 13,000 women who have been murdered in cold blood?

What sin did Gaza commit to be bombarded with more than 100,000 tonnes of explosives?

Why has the world permitted this bloodbath to continue, uninterrupted, for more than 20 months?

We call upon you:

• To mobilise in your streets, your parliaments, your institutions, and your communities.
• To speak loudly and clearly against these atrocities.
• To demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire.
• To insist on the full, safe, and unhindered entry of humanitarian aid.
• To hold those responsible, whether through complicity or direct action, accountable under international law.

The children of Gaza, or what remains of them, are calling out to you.

They are not asking for luxury or comfort.

They are asking for the right to survive.

To live without fear.

To drink clean water.

To eat a meal.

To be healed.

To sleep in peace.

To grow.

History will remember where each of us stood.

Let it be recorded that we stood with humanity.

That we raised our voices when silence was complicity.

That we did not fail Gaza.

Rise with us. Stand with Gaza.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.