Justice Muralidhar’s UN Report indicts Israel for targeting Palestinian children. Civil society must act

This is not “collateral damage”; it is a deliberate campaign to dismantle the demographic vitality, reproductive continuity, and very future of the Palestinian people.

In more normative times, faced with such irrefutable evidence, international institutions would have responded, and the global consciousness would have been outraged. Collectively, there would have been a concerted attempt to galvanise and protect these children.

However, these are egregiously blighted times, and pursuing justice through the UN Security Council is a political dead end. Decades of West Asian diplomatic history guarantee that the US will use its veto power to shield Israel from meaningful accountability, thereby rendering the council ineffective. Therefore, the international community must pivot directly to the international courts to pursue individual criminal accountability for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. How effective this initiative will be remains moot, but for a world order that is ostensibly committed to the rule of law, at the very least, the judicial process would have been triggered.

Geopolitically, it is highly unlikely that governments like India’s will take an unambiguous public stance due to complex diplomatic and strategic alignments. Yet, geopolitical paralysis cannot be allowed to dictate human conscience. Where states choose silence, civil society must speak and act.

There is a deep, historical well of empathy for the Palestinian cause across South Asia, particularly within India – though it currently remains subdued. Can this collective conscience spearhead a global, civil society-led intervention to provide succour and appropriate medical care? Crucially, this coalition should actively align with and amplify the courageous, dissenting voices rising within Israel itself that denounce these atrocities.

By joining hands with international partners and internal critics of the occupation, an inclusive global effort can be envisioned. This initiative should begin modestly but precisely: Finding resources and organising volunteers who can safely enter Palestine to review the current status of these children and evaluate their immediate medical and psychological needs.

As a grandparent, I am aware of how much care and attention children require even at the best of times. To comprehend the trauma of three- or four-year-old kids bombed out of their homes, stripped of their families and subjected to mass trauma is nearly impossible. Is the world complicit in the passive erasure of Palestine? Civil society must shed its complacency and build a global network of solidarity that refuses to abandon these children, ensuring that the future of Palestine cannot be systematically wiped away.

The report indicts the Netanyahu government for acts that stain the conscience of humanity. It is a cruel irony that a state born from the Holocaust, the Jewish people’s deepest wound, now stands accused of inflicting similar diabolical devastation on children. Civil society cannot look away. When the victims of history become the authors of new trauma, silence is an endorsement. The world must act.

To its credit, South Africa, which instituted proceedings against Israel before the ICJ (International Court of Justice) in December 2023, has requested access to the Muralidhar report. Hopefully, other nations will support Pretoria when the Palestine report is presented to the UN General Assembly later this year.

The writer is director, Society for Policy Studies, New Delhi