By Dr. Ghassan Shahrour
The tragedy unfolding in Gaza continues to challenge the moral conscience of our world. Entire families have vanished under the rubble, hospitals lie in ruins, and generations of children carry trauma that no ceasefire can erase. For those of us who serve in the health and humanitarian fields, Gaza is not a headline — it is a wound in humanity’s body, still bleeding despite the promises of diplomacy.
As health professionals and advocates for disarmament, peace, and human rights, we are bound by an ethical duty: to defend life, to protect dignity, and to refuse silence when politics crush compassion. Peace cannot be built on selective empathy or on temporary calm that ignores the roots of injustice.
U.S. President Donald Trump now claims credit for the Gaza agreement, yet his record and articles of the agreement tell another story — one that reveals the gulf between words and deeds:
- He backed Israel’s war machine with billions in weapons. According to Brown University’s Costs of War project (Sept 2025), U.S. aid to Israel between Oct 2023 and Sept 2025 reached $33.77 billion.(Biden/Trump). It encompasses both aid to Israel and broader U.S. military activities in the Middle East.
- He punished the International Criminal Court for issuing arrest warrants against Israel’s Prime Minister, shielding war crimes from accountability — the first such act in modern history.
- He sanctioned Palestinian human rights groups that cooperated with the ICC.
- He repeatedly vetoed UN Security Council ceasefire resolutions, even when all other members supported them.
- His “peace plan” omitted international law, victims’ rights, and any commitment to end occupation or annexation.
- It excluded Palestinian representation, sidelined the UN, and promoted privatized reconstruction under business elites.
This is not peacemaking — it is power disguised as diplomacy.
This is not reconstruction — it is control through commerce.
True peace requires more than deals between governments. It demands accountability, justice, dignity, international humanitarian laws and Palestinian self-determination — not a “Riviera of the Middle East” built on rubble and repression. Genuine peace grows from truth and equity, not from silence and spectacle.
To talk about peace while avoiding the question of justice is to perpetuate an illusion. Every demolished home, every denied permit, every child deprived of medical care and education is not only a personal tragedy but a violation of international law. The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits collective punishment and attacks on civilians, yet such violations continue with impunity. When international law is applied selectively, it loses both its authority and its soul.
Peace that ignores accountability is fragile; peace without dignity is impossible. History has shown that oppression, when left unchallenged, reproduces itself under new names and flags. The lessons of South Africa, of Vietnam, of Bosnia — all remind us that reconciliation without justice merely postpones conflict.
As a medical doctor, I have seen how the human body mirrors the moral state of our societies. In Gaza’s hospitals, medical workers perform surgeries without anesthesia, parents search for missing children in the debris, and patients on dialysis die because fuel for generators has run out. These are not statistics — they are names, faces, and stories. They remind us that neutrality in the face of such suffering is not humanitarianism; it is complicity.
Disarmament, too, must be understood in moral terms. It is not only about reducing weapons stockpiles, but about dismantling the systems that arm injustice: unchecked power, economic greed, and the silence of those who know better. The architecture of impunity — built through vetoes, military aid, and political shielding — sustains the violence as much as the weapons themselves.
If humanity is to survive its own contradictions, it must reclaim moral clarity. The right to life, health, and safety cannot depend on geography or identity. The world cannot insist on accountability in one conflict while excusing atrocities in another. Selective outrage erodes the very foundation of universal human rights.
Peace is not a transaction; it is a transformation — of power into justice, of fear into dignity, of silence into truth and advocacy. It begins when we recognize that every life, Palestinian or otherwise, holds equal worth.
We must speak — for truth, for justice, for every person denied care, shelter, and recognition. The price of silence is far greater than the cost of courage.
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
“It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and to expose lies.” — Noam Chomsky
Last but not least, only when we embrace that responsibility — as citizens, professionals, and human beings — can the world hope to move from ceasefire to peace, and from peace to justice.
Dr. Ghassan Shahrour is a medical doctor, writer, and human rights advocate specializing in health, disability, and disarmament.
13 October 2025
Source: countercurrents.org