Humanitarianism in the genocide

What is the role of humanitarianism amid Israel’s ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people? This short contribution probes this question, drawing from long running critiques of humanitarian complicity in Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine, while balancing consideration of the necessity of humanitarian aid in the current context of extreme violence that is intended to end, maim and displace Palestinian life. The authors argue that humanitarianism amid the genocide is ambivalent; it is both fundamental in the face of mass dehumanization and death, and yet remains incredibly limited in its capacity to care as a result of humanitarian’s own limits to confront politically crafted violence, and the severe limitation of the negligible humanitarian space afforded by Israel’s genocidal regime.