For the past two years, since Israel escalated its ground invasion in Gaza, the world has watched and grown accustomed to the blatant attempts to systematically erase a whole population from the map. Through indolence or neglect, a vast number have chosen to remain neutral where neutrality causes bombs to fall. The tragedy of the mundane distracts us from what is happening in Gaza; it poses itself limited to a fleeting thought, where most soon realize that life simply goes on for them, a privilege gravely denied to the people of Palestine today.

Psychic numbing is a psychological phenomenon where the increase in the degree of tragedy leads to a decrease in the value of life. Be it through apathy, lack of willingness to help, or complete emotional withdrawal, it forcefully retracts us from the rest, posing us as mere bystanders rather than active actors in times of crisis. 

The limitations we place on our own capacity for empathy allow us to live a semblance of a normal life in a burning world. The higher the death toll, the greater the tragedy, the more it becomes abstract and obscure.

As the rate of victims and deaths exponentially increases, many have chosen to look the other way around, because, as hard as a pill to swallow, we must admit we have slowly grown numb—perhaps even desensitized to it all. 

In fact, as I’m writing this column, the Israeli’s war machine has continued raging for many decades now. Death tolls continued to rise. Hospitals are bombed. Journalists are killed. Numerous families were displaced. Children were forcefully starved. No person is deemed innocent, nor a place holy enough.

Al Jazeera reported that the Palestinians have been deprived of access to food, water, and medicine numerous times, creating an Israeli state-induced famine as a means of warfare, resulting in at least 66,000 confirmed deaths and various human rights violations since October 2023. 

Yet, our inaction, neutrality, and passivity have turned us into co-conspirators—consequential participants themselves. As indifference leads to apathy, apathy yields complicity. Acting as if we see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil has cost us our dear innocence. Only through taking definite action can we truly redeem ourselves. 

The solution is not just simply to act but to overcome the idea of indifference itself. Through restoring humanity and value to the victims of genocide, what’s happening in Gaza will cease as an abstract, distant tragedy but rather a humanitarian crisis that requires an immediate response– resisting complicity, expressing resistance.  

In speaking, writing, and talking about what’s happening in Gaza, so the whole world can fully know the whole narrative on what is truly happening outside the comforts of our own. Supporting the Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS) Israel movement– a non-violent, decentralized, global protest collectively formed to pressure Israel to cease its military occupation and end the genocide of the Gaza Strip. Sharing a common experience of oppression under Western imperialism and colonialism, we, Filipinos, have the moral and historical obligation to support the Palestinians in their struggle for self-determination, a solidarity that knows no borders nor bounds. 

To be neutral in times of great moral crisis constitutes the gravest sin in violation of all the long-standing customs and goodwill of mankind. There is always a choice, and choosing to be silent speaks for itself. 

Editor’s Note: This article was first issued in the December 2025 First Semester Newsletter of Atenews.