The New Age of Genocide: Intellectual and Political Challenges after Gaza
By Martin Shaw
Newcastle upon Tyne: Agenda Publishing, 2025, 224 Pages, $35.00, ISBN: 9781788218733
Genocide in Gaza: Israel’s Long War on Palestine
By Avi Shlaim
Belfast: The Irish Pages Press, 2024, 435 pages, €22.00, ISBN 9781739090227
Gaza Catastrophe: The Genocide in World-Historical Perspective
By Gilbert Achcar
Oakland: University of California Press, 2025, 248 pages. $22.95, ISBN: 9780520423558
Introduction: From War to Genocide
1 Over 170,000 have been injured. Close to half of those killed are children (at a rate of one per hour), and over 21,000 children are suffering from life-altering injuries, with Gaza having the world’s largest amputee population. Adding in women, girls, and the elderly, the civilian deaths have reached 83 percent. “Figures from a classified Israeli military intelligence database indicate five out of six Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza have been civilians, an extreme rate of slaughter rarely matched in recent decades of warfare.”2 The youngest is a day-old boy, and the oldest is a 97-year-old woman.
At least 94 percent of hospitals in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, and hundreds of doctors and healthcare workers have been killed.3 Women and girls bear the brunt of collapsing healthcare and mass displacement.4 Indeed, it has been variously described as a war on children, a war on women, a war on hospitals, and a war on journalists. Restrictions on humanitarian aid have led to accusations of starvation being used as a weapon of war. Military forces have intentionally destroyed agricultural land, infrastructure, and livelihoods in Gaza, including targeting farmers.5 Over 98 percent of cropland is ruined.6
