By Invitation | One year of war in Gaza

Philippe Lazzarini says the blows to humanitarian law in Gaza harm us all

The head of UNRWA, the UN’s agency for Palestinians, warns the world not to look away

Illustration: Dan Williams

THE POLITICAL theorist Hannah Arendt warned that “the death of human empathy is one of the earliest and most telling signs of a culture on the verge of descending into barbarism.” As the war in Gaza reaches the one-year mark it continues to reveal a frightening deficit of mutual empathy. What can stop the descent into barbarism is the power of laws that are slipping into irrelevance. Without them, where Gaza goes, so might the rest of the world.

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From the October 5th 2024 edition

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