Human Rights Day, commemorated annually on 10 December, is intended to reaffirm the principles of dignity, equality, and universal protection enshrined in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Yet in the age of Gaza, these principles ring hollow. The world marks Human Rights Day with speeches and ceremonies, even as an entire civilian population endures bombardment, displacement, starvation, and the collapse of basic infrastructure—with almost complete impunity.

Gaza has become the starkest mirror of our time. It reveals a world in which “universal” rights are selectively defended, in which civilian lives can be extinguished during declared humanitarian pauses, and in which the international system proves unable—or unwilling—to enforce its own norms. The tragedy is not only that Gaza burns, but that it burns while the world insists it still believes in human rights.

The bitter paradox of Gaza is that even a “ceasefire” no longer guarantees safety. Israel announces pauses in fighting, yet strikes hospitals, refugee shelters, and residential blocks hours later. These are not accidents or isolated incidents; they signal a global shift. We live in an era where restraint has eroded, legality has weakened, and the protection of civilians has become politically negotiable. Each broken ceasefire broadcasts a dangerous message: the laws of war no longer function as limits for those powerful enough to ignore them.

Political theorist Carl Schmitt once argued that the sovereign is the one who decides the exception. Israel’s conduct in Gaza reflects this logic with unsettling clarity. By invoking “self-defence” without temporal or ethical boundaries, it asserts the authority to determine when international law applies and when it can be suspended. This produces a permanent state of exception—an elastic zone where lethal force can be justified regardless of circumstances, even during declared humanitarian pauses.

The post–World War II international order, built on the promise........

© Middle East Monitor