Israel’s Bomb-Dumping in Gaza Isn’t Just Immoral—It’s Genocide

Israel’s Bomb-Dumping in Gaza Isn’t Just Immoral—It’s Genocide

In June 2025, as Israeli fighter jets returned from intercepting Iranian drones and missiles, something grotesque began to unfold—quietly, bureaucratically, and without a trace of accountability. According to a recent exposé by Israeli newspaper Maariv, returning pilots began dropping their leftover bombs on Gaza, not out of strategic necessity, but simply to avoid bringing unused munitions back to base.

What began as a spontaneous decision by a few aircrew quickly gained institutional approval. Senior Israeli Air Force officials embraced the practice, formalised it, and even praised it as a “force multiplier.” The result? Dozens of jets rerouted mid-flight to release surplus payloads over northern Gaza and Khan Younis, areas already devastated by months of relentless bombardment and mass civilian suffering.

This policy—if we can even call it that—is as revealing as it is damning. Gaza was not being targeted because of an active military threat. It was being used because it was convenient. It was easy. It was trapped. It was disposable.

And therein lies the truth: this was not merely a tactical manoeuvre. It was yet another act in what must now be recognised as an ongoing genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people.

Under the 1948 UN Genocide Convention, genocide is defined as acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. The list includes killing, inflicting serious bodily or mental harm, and deliberately creating conditions designed to bring about a group’s destruction.

What does bomb-dumping over a besieged civilian enclave qualify as, if not that?

This isn’t hyperbole. In January 2024, the International Court of Justice declared that genocide in Gaza was plausible. Since then, Israel’s campaign has only intensified. Entire neighbourhoods have been reduced to ash. Hospitals have been levelled. Aid convoys have been blocked. Children have been buried in mass graves.

Now we learn that even leftover explosives are being unloaded over Gaza as an afterthought—as though the land and its people are little more than a testing ground for military efficiency. This is what genocide looks like in the 21st century: technocratic, militarised, and shrouded in the language of logistics.

The pilots who carried out these actions are not blameless. Nor are their commanders, or the politicians who authorised a system in which munitions disposal takes precedence over human life. Every one of them must be investigated—and where evidence supports it, prosecuted—for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

This is not a tragic accident or an unintended consequence of war. It is the weaponisation of surplus firepower against a captive civilian population. It is extermination by convenience. And it is a crime.

Those who still frame Israel’s actions as self-defence must now contend with the reality: Gaza is being bombed not because it poses a threat, but because it exists—stateless, voiceless, and surrounded.

To continue to shield Israel from legal accountability is not neutrality. It is complicity. And for the millions in Gaza, every hour of silence from the international community is another hour of sanctioned destruction.

This moment demands moral clarity. It demands legal action. And above all, it demands that we say the word that too many have feared to utter:

Genocide.