Three years have passed since the brutal attacks of October 7th, a day that seared itself into the collective memory of Israelis and sent shockwaves across the world. The BBC wire story brings us news of memorial events, somber reflections, and the enduring grief of a nation mourning its dead. It is a moment, undeniably, to acknowledge the raw, human pain of loss – the families shattered, the lives stolen, the innocence irrevocably altered. No person of conscience can hear of such suffering and not feel a profound sadness. Grief, in its purest form, is universal, and the mourning of victims is a sacred right.
Yet, as a writer dedicated to illuminating the stories of the Global South, I find myself grappling with an uncomfortable but necessary truth: memory is never neutral, and grief, when expressed selectively, can inadvertently overshadow other colossal burdens of sorrow. While we extend our sympathy to those remembering October 7th, we must also ask: who else is mourning this week? What other anniversaries, born from the very same conflict, pass largely unacknowledged by the world’s major news outlets and political leaders?
The wire story frames the events of October 7th as the spark that ignited the devastating Gaza war. This framing, while factually correct in sequence, risks flattening the complex, multi-layered history of violence and occupation that preceded it. For too long, the narratives emanating from powerful capitals have presented the suffering of one people as an isolated tragedy, divorced from the protracted dispossession, blockades, and daily humiliations endured by another. This is the extractive nature of selective empathy; it mines pain from one side while burying the anguish of the other deep beneath the surface.
Consider, for a moment, the children of Gaza. Three years ago, many of them were already living under a punishing blockade, a siege that has stolen their childhoods, stunted their development, and denied them basic dignities. For them, October 7th was not merely a 'spark,' but another catastrophic escalation in a life already defined by conflict, displacement, and deprivation. Their grief, their fear, their dreams – these are just as valid, just as human, but so often rendered invisible in the dominant global discourse. Who is holding memorials for the tens of thousands of Palestinians, many of them children, killed in the subsequent war? Whose names are being read aloud in solemn ceremonies for those lost in the retaliatory campaigns?
My beat, the Global South, constantly reminds me that the world’s power dynamics dictate whose pain is amplified and whose is muted. The language of 'devastating war' used to describe the aftermath, while true, often obscures the disproportionality of suffering, the targeting of civilian infrastructure, and the systematic destruction of a way of life in Gaza that has left a future generations with irreparable scars. This is not to diminish Israeli pain, but to demand a wider lens, a more complete accounting of human tragedy. Justice, after all, requires a full understanding of all victims, and a recognition of the underlying causes that perpetuate cycles of violence.
A truly progressive and morally insistent stance requires us to challenge the frameworks that allow for differential treatment of human lives. When we speak of debt in the Global South, it is not just financial debt, but the moral debt owed to those whose stories are consistently ignored, whose humanity is diminished to serve a particular political narrative. The families in Israel mourning their loved ones deserve our sympathy. But so too do the families in Gaza, in the West Bank, whose lives have been undone by violence, occupation, and a crushing lack of agency long before, and long after, October 7th.
If we are to ever move towards a lasting peace, we must resist the urge to compartmentalize grief. We must insist on seeing all victims, acknowledging all suffering, and recognizing the systemic injustices that fuel these unending cycles. Only then can we begin to address the root causes, rather than simply reacting to their devastating manifestations. To truly honor the dead, on all sides, is to fight for a future where no more memorials are needed.