Why is it too much to ask for Palestinians to be viewed as humans?

I do not want to ever hear western democracies lecture the rest of the world on human rights ever again.

- Arwa Mahdawi

As I write this, more than 10,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's bombardment of Gaza - almost half of them children. One child is being killed every 10 minutes in Gaza. Those numbers, it should be noted, only count the kids who are dying as a direct result of Israel's indiscriminate bombing. The kids who were "lucky" enough to die instantaneously in an airstrike. And the not-so-"lucky" ones: innocent children buried under rubble, dying painful and protracted deaths as they are suffocated by the eviscerated remains of their home.

Those numbers don't count the kids slowly dying of hunger and thirst. The kids getting sick from drinking sewage and sea water. They don't count the kids with cancer who will not be able to get any care now that the Israeli siege has forced the only cancer hospital in Gaza to suspend operations. They don't count the kids who are going to die from avoidable diseases because hospitals in Gaza are ceasing to function.