BREAKING NEWS (…???)
Gaza is starving, and we’re finally talking about it.
Not because it just started, but because we’re finally willing to look.
It’s heartbreaking, of course, but this crisis has been going on for nearly two years. So why now? Why are we only just starting to give a shit?
Because unless you’ve been living under a rock since October 2023, surely you realise this isn’t new news? Or…maybe you actually don’t?
Or maybe the combination of cost-of-living pressure, a busted housing market, climate anxiety, and a general feeling of existential dread meant you haven’t had enough fucks to go around?
Or maybe you felt that creeping sense of hopelessness and had a case of the what-can-I-do-about-its.
In any case, I don’t blame you. Because it’s hard to build sustained global outrage when the platforms themselves are suppressing the story.
I remember caring a lot about Gaza circa October 2023 - March 2024. I followed a creator who shared graphic, unfiltered footage from inside Gaza: images of headless babies, dying fathers and hysterical mothers that stayed with me for days.
I cried real tears watching them.
And then, one day, his account disappeared. Deleted. Just gone.
And surely enough, within a few short weeks of not being confronted by headless babies, dying fathers and hysterical mothers as part of my morning doom scroll, I just sort of…stopped caring so much?
Once that imagery disappeared from my feed, my urgency died too. And it was 💯 intentional.
There’s been widespread reporting about shadow banning, story reach being throttled, and pro-Palestinian accounts being removed with no warning. There are a handful of creators on Instagram who have led a stoic and sustained online protest since that time, but Meta has a murky-at-best track record of silencing activist voices under the guise of “policy violations” (read: censorship).
And locally? Mainstream media has been anaemic, neither wanting to name the “war in Gaza” for what it really is (read: genocide) but equally staying measured in the reporting of the atrocious acts of antisemitism playing out on home turf. And along the way, Australian journalists have been fired for speaking out online.
Our government has been shamefully quiet, under the guise of diplomacy, because in an Election year Palestine was a too-hot-to-touch potato. Finally this week we’re hearing murmurs from Albo about Palestinian statehood, and a suggestion that Israel is, in fact, breaking international law by withholding aid from civilians in Gaza. No shit, Sherlock.
Let’s be clear: I’m not a political analyst. I’m just a person who has watched this unfold with increasing horror.
For me, this week, it got personal, too. I found out my cousin is currently stuck in Israel with his wife, who is Israeli. So this is no longer just something happening “over there” - it’s now entangled with people I know and love.
And when I see the footage coming out of Gaza now I feel everything I felt in 2023 all over again, only louder, sadder, and angrier. This sudden resurgence feels so urgent and so intense because it’s been deliberately quieted for so long.
BUT…I’m also wary of slipping into clicktivism and resharing trauma without taking real action, or posting just to be seen as “on the right side.”
It’s easy to hit repost and feel like we’ve done our part, but solidarity has to mean more than just optics and the silence is no longer sustainable.
We might be late to the party (read: genocide) - but showing up late is still better than pretending the invitation got lost in the mail.
#FreePalestine 🍉
This piece first appeared in Excessive Consumption - a weekly dispatch on culture, branding, politics and whatever other modern internet brain rot the algorithm has emotionally assigned me that week.
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