The struggle of Gaza’s people is frequently interpreted through the competing languages of security, nationalism, religion and geopolitics. Each illuminates part of the conflict, yet each can obscure its most fundamental question: are Palestinians entitled to the rights every human being possesses simply by being human? Viewed through the history of human rights, Gazan resistance acquires a significance extending beyond one people or territory. It exposes the distance between humanity’s proclaimed commitment to universal dignity and its willingness to protect those whose rights are repeatedly denied.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948, rejects hierarchies of human worth. Rights belong to people regardless of nationality, religion, political allegiance or recognition by a sovereign state. Palestinians therefore need no special justification for claiming life, liberty, education, property and security. Their entitlement precedes the political arrangements through which these rights should be protected.

Gazan resistance, understood as the broader struggle against dispossession and for individual and collective freedom, makes this principle concrete. It encompasses political mobilisation, civic action, cultural continuity and the work of sustaining society under destructive conditions. Its universal significance arises from the rights being defended and the insistence that Palestinians must be able to exercise them.

A Century of Dispossession and Resistance

Beginning this history on 7 October 2023 reduces an extended struggle over rights to the aftermath of one event. It obscures the experiences shaping successive Palestinian generations: dispossession, displacement, occupation and the frustration of political freedom.

The century-long dimension emerges from the imperial arrangements preceding Israel’s establishment. The 1917 Balfour Declaration supported a Jewish national home in Palestine while describing the existing non-Jewish population through safeguards for civil and religious rights. Incorporated into the British Mandate, this formulation recognised one population’s national aspirations without equivalent recognition of the other’s.

The violence surrounding Israel’s establishment transformed political exclusion into mass dispossession. The April 1948 attack on Deir Yassin by Irgun and Lehi became an enduring expression of Palestinian civilian vulnerability.

The violence surrounding Israel’s establishment transformed political exclusion into mass dispossession. The April 1948 attack on Deir Yassin by Irgun and Lehi became an enduring expression of Palestinian civilian vulnerability.

During the Nakba, approximately 750,000 Palestinians were uprooted. Gaza became a major refuge for people separated from their homes, livelihoods and communities.

The coincidence of the Nakba and the Universal Declaration in 1948 reveals a profound historical dissonance. As the international community articulated universal dignity, Palestinians lost essential conditions for exercising their rights. Their subsequent struggle has continually exposed the gap between recognition and protection.

Israel’s occupation of Gaza in 1967 added further layers of control. Its withdrawal of settlements and permanent ground forces in 2005 did not establish Palestinian sovereignty. The International Committee of the Red Cross continued to regard Gaza as occupied because Israel retained effective control over key dimensions of access and movement. The Israeli blockade imposed in 2007 further constrained economic and social life.

Recurring violence intensified these conditions. The United Nations recorded........

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