Living through a genocide is deeply traumatic.

My beloved sister Alaa and her family have been killed by the IDF, as have my cousins Mahmoud, Mohammed and Hatem.

Yesterday, my uncle’s home was bombed. He has nothing to do with Hamas. The remains of his home sits metres from the entrance to my father’s home where we both walked not so long ago.

My personal losses are just one example of lives impacted by Israel’s slaughter of 60,000 Palestinians in Gaza.

My family cannot find food. They call me. I cannot help them as they starve to death over whatsapp.

Israel denies what the world can see, that increasing numbers of deaths are occurring because of Israeli-engineered starvation.

In response, an increasing number of Western nations — including Australia — have said that they will recognise Palestine at the UN in New York in September.

By September there will be little left to recognise, not much of Gaza left to destroy, thousands more Palestinians will have been killed and hundreds of small children will have died from malnutrition.

Intervention to halt the US-backed and funded Israel decimation of a people is imperative. Please, let’s hear no more words of respect for international law unless accompanied by urgent action, no more ignoring Israeli repetition that the starvation and other forms of Israeli depravity are the fault of Hamas.

Throughout Gaza and the West Bank, the threats of death are everywhere for my people. It is very clear to us that Israel’s killing and starvation are aimed at eliminating us as Palestinians, hence a need for courageous urgent intervention.

In accordance with the 2005 UN principle “the right to protect”, under UN Security Council Resolution 2334 and the July 2024, ICJ Advisory Opinion to end the occupation and expel the settlers, a peace force could and should be marshalled. Nothing less.

Instead of a few expensive pallets of food being air-dropped into Gaza, intervention would have meaning and far more benefits if French, British, Norwegian, Spanish and Australian peacekeeping forces were armed with food, medicines, water, basic means of shelter and dropped into Gaza.

Lives could be saved. The IDF confronted. Apart from the US and Israel, the world would applaud.

Unless the beautiful people of Palestine are to be regarded as sub-human and merely left to die, this proposal must be considered.

We are responding to a genocide. It is not a war. We are asked to cope with despair, to simply observe an organised slaughter by one of the largest most well-equipped armies in the world against a defenceless people who have suffered Israeli death and destruction for decades.

That macabre process can only be stopped if Israeli aggression is halted in its tracks. That’s what intervention means.

Western nations responsible for the arrival of peacekeepers would at last be taking seriously their commitments to protect peoples from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity.

Australia has a long, proud history of peacekeeping in the Middle East. If we can’t intervene to stop a genocide, what is the point?

Hundreds of thousands of Australian citizens marching for humanity across the Sydney Harbour Bridge on Sunday 3 August would have their appeals heard if peacekeepers for humanity could give teeth to the usually ignored demands to lift a siege, end the occupation and emphasise refugees’ right of return.

That intervention is long overdue. With more than a hint of bravery, Gough Whitlam would have said, “It’s time.”

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