Two years on from October 7 and it’s still hard to find the words. I can’t speak for all Palestinians, but for me the most painful truth is not only the destruction of Gaza, but the depth of our dehumanisation.
The world has shown us over and over again that our lives do not weigh the same — our families can be massacred, our journalists murdered, our homes stolen and still: silence.
Still: neutrality.
Still: the perpetrators unnamed.
There have been flashes of hope. The Sumud Flotillas, boats full of activists carrying food, medicine, and baby formula, tried to break the illegal Israeli siege. Ordinary people risked their lives to help. But less than 100 nautical miles from Gaza, those boats were “intercepted” by Israel. Hundreds were detained. Among them, at least six Australians.
Will our government finally act to protect them? Or will it stick to lines like the one from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: “Australia calls on all parties to respect international law.” That’s it? Just a polite “call” while Australians are detained by the same state we refuse to hold accountable for what the UN Commission has found is a genocide?
Meanwhile, nothing has broken the siege. Borders remain sealed. Aid trucks rot at Rafah while families starve.
“The people of Gaza have absolutely no way to escape the killing. They are literally a captive population,” said UN investigator Chris Sidoti.
“It’s distinguishable from any other conflict, certainly in recent decades and probably in my lifetime.”
Gaza is a cage by design.
Sidoti also told the National Press Club that while Australia may not send weapons directly to Israel, it must ban all military-related trade, including parts. Two years on, we still haven’t.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong insists the parts we do send are “non-lethal in nature”. I’m sorry, which part of an F-35 fighter jet dropping bombs is non-lethal?
I cling to the hope of hearing someone of Sidoti’s standing say these things out loud. I cling to the hope that something comes from the UN has named Israel’s actions for what they are: genocide. But underneath that is anger and disappointment in my own government. I never thought Australia was perfect, but I did think it would stand on the right side of history when faced with an unrelenting, live-streamed genocide.
Apparently not.
I think of Zomi Frankom, an Australian humanitarian killed by an Israeli bomb while trying to feed starving people. Her death reduced to a press release calling it “tragic”.
Where is the justice for Zomi? And if not for her, then for the six Australians still detained right now?
On 21 September 2025, Australia finally recognised the State of Palestine. But it refused to recognise the genocide. The Prime Minister called it a “devastating loss of life”, as if Palestinians simply vanished into thin air, not under Israeli bombs and bullets.
Israel wasn’t named. Accountability wasn’t demanded. Recognition came, but wrapped in cowardice.
Recognition without accountability is theatre. Without sanctions, without an arms embargo, without cutting weapons trade recognition is empty.
It hasn’t stopped bombs from falling. It hasn’t fed starving kids. It won’t save the next Hind Rajab, the five-year-old whose desperate cries were heard worldwide before her body was found 12 days later.
Shot over 300 times.
A five-year-old girl.
For two years those in power have spoken about October 7 like it was the beginning of history. Endless speeches about Israeli hostages, but silence on Palestinian ones.
Constant talk of Hamas terrorists, but never of the perpetrators of genocide, even after the UN and scholars declared it as such.
Hospitals, schools, aid workers, whole families erased before our eyes, while governments hide behind language so vague it makes Palestinians invisible.
Yes, October 7 was horrific. But nothing justifies what followed: mass starvation, mass graves, mass slaughter. To call this a “loss of life” is obscene. It is not a loss. It is a crime. A stain on our collective humanity.
And even now, when Palestine is “recognised”, Australia still will not name the criminal. Instead, it nods along to Trump-brokered “peace deals” where Indigenous Palestinians get no say in their own future. Just another layer of the colonial project.
So two years on, I hold onto hope in ordinary people who risk their lives to save others. I think of the thousands killed by Israel. The murdered medics and journalists. The detained Australians. And I keep hoping and fighting for what Palestinians have always deserved: a free Palestine.
This Palestinian-Australian author is known to PEDESTRIAN.TV but has chosen to stay anonymous.
Lead image: AP Images
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