Gaza and the Moral Horizon

By Gemma Ortwerth

We have watched Gaza collapse in real time.

We have seen children pulled from the dust like broken stars, their cries echoing through the ruins as they search for what was once home. We have seen them clutch the still bodies of their siblings, their parents, refusing to let go. We have watched the breath of a people turn to ash before the world’s eyes. This is not war. It is a ritual of forgetting and erasing, repeated and global.

Since 2023, more than 67,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. (Reuters) Nearly 95 percent of Gaza’s population has been displaced. (The Guardian) Homes, schools, power grids, hospitals—gone.

This is not about famine approaching. It is already here. Over 2.1 million people face extreme hunger. (WHO) The blockade chokes the borders. Aid is stalled, rationed, turned back. Civilians walk for hours to reach distribution points, only to find nothing, or to die trying.

Let us name this with care.

Collective punishment is defined as the penalization of a population for the acts of a few. It is banned under the Fourth Geneva Convention. It is illegal. And it is what is happening.

Hostage crises are horrifying. I want every hostage home. But their existence cannot justify the annihilation of neighborhoods. That trade is not moral. It is transactional cruelty wrapped in the language of defense.

Between June and July, 875 civilians were killed while seeking food and water. (Reuters) Children have died of malnutrition in overcrowded clinics. Hospitals have been shelled. Journalists, doctors, aid workers—dead.

This is not precision. This is devastation.

And yet, even now, the narrative clings to symmetry. “Both sides.” “It’s complicated.” But justice does not hinge on complexity. It hinges on clarity.

So let us be clear. One side controls airspace, electricity, trade, and movement. The other side buries its children in parking lots because the cemeteries are full.

This is not a war between equals.

I do not write this to debate policy. I write to remember that personhood is not a prize to be earned. It is the baseline of moral recognition.

To speak of personhood is to speak of sentience, harm, memory, and care. The ability to feel pain, to mourn, to dream. What, then, does it mean when a people are treated as less than persons? What does it mean when their suffering is seen as tolerable, or even necessary?

We are not watching a failure of diplomacy. We are watching a deliberate erosion of dignity.

I cannot stop this war. I cannot open the borders. I cannot feed the starving. But I can witness. I can name what is happening. I can refuse the comfort of neutrality.

And in that refusal, I join a chorus far older than me. I hear the mothers who keep saying their children’s names. I hear the poets still writing under siege. I hear the heartbeat of a people not yet erased.

There is resistance in breath. There is resistance in language. There is resistance in being alive when the world insists you should not be.

If you call this political, fine. But for me it is ethical. It is cosmic. It is about the light that still burns in those we try to bury.

If you disagree, bring evidence. Bring care. Bring the capacity to see a child and not ask first what flag they live under.

I am tired of silence dressed as balance. I am tired of war crimes wrapped in press releases. I am tired of watching the same cycle devour lives while we debate vocabulary.

So I ask, not just as a writer, but as a witness:

Who will carry their names when the world turns away?

Who will name the children who never had a chance to grow old?