acutely in Italy’s Naples

Just 11 years old, Yaqeen was one of Gaza’s youngest social media influencers. In her short life, she embodied what Palestinian scholar and poet Rafeef Ziadah called Palestinian ways in “teaching life”. Yaqeen made desserts. She delivered food. She brought happiness to children who had lost everything. In one of her videos, while preparing food, she told the world: “In Gaza, we don’t know the word impossible.” This was her crime.On May 23, the same day Alaa’s children were incinerated, Israel decided that Yaqeen was somehow a threat to its existence. Multiple air raids hit her neighbourhood in Deir el-Balah and ended her life. She was one of 18,000 Palestinian children killed since October, one of 1,300+ since Israel broke the ceasefire in March, and one of dozens in just 48 hours.

Commenting on the moral double standards applied to Palestinians, Dan Sheehan, editor at Literary Hub, noted: “If an 11-year-old Israeli influencer – a girl who delivered food and toys to displaced children – had been killed, the Empire State Building would be lit up for her. Her face would be on the homepage of every major US news outlet. Her name would be on the tongue of every politician.”But, for Yaqeen, there is only silence.A seasoned Palestinian diplomat at the UN, Riyad Mansour, was so disturbed by the scale of this destruction against children that he broke down in tears during a statement. Video footage showed Danny Danon – his Israeli counterpart – stifling a yawn in response.

In the face of the death of Palestinian children, Israel yawns in indifference. This is unsurprising, with a recent poll showing that 82 percent of Jewish Israelis support expelling Palestinians from Gaza. How can Palestinians be told, then, to bring themselves – and their children – to Israeli military aid delivery stations and expect safety, not savagery? “How,” in the words of leading Gaza human rights lawyer Raji Sourani, “could the hand that kills also become the hand that feeds?”Of course, the answer is that it cannot: Israel’s killing hands are reaching far into the Gaza Strip, and children feel the brunt.

One of those who avoided the fate of martyrdom is Ward al-Sheikh Khalil, a five-year-old girl who was sheltering at a UN school. She awoke to flames engulfing the classroom where her family was sleeping. Her mum and siblings were killed in the Israeli strike. The roof collapsed, and she was filmed as she tried to escape while her small body was swallowed by smoke and chaos. Rescued by a medic, she whispered, when asked where her mother and siblings were: “Under the rubble.”

Another young girl was pulled from beneath the ruins of the classroom, her body half burned. Will her pain be enough to move the hearts of politicians? How many girls like her? How many boys? How many broken, charred, or buried bodies will it take before this genocide is named and stopped? Will the number of 18,000 Palestinian children – whose names we may never fully know – not be enough?Counting will begin immediately and the winner will be known that evening or in the early hours of the following day. The candidate who receives the most votes will be deemed the winner, even if they don’t win 50 percent of the votes.

In the early hours of Tuesday morning, thousands ofpeople made the long journey to south Gaza, many walking tens of kilometres in the scorching summer heat to reach a newly established aid distribution centre run by the Israeli- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

Among them was Walaa Abu Sa’da (35), mother of three children who decided to go to Rafah by herself.“My children were on the verge of starving. No milk, no food, not even baby formula. They cried day and night, and I had to beg neighbours for scraps,” Abu Sa’da told