On 19 January, a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came into effect, bringing a temporary pause to the relentless violence that ravaged Palestine for over 15 months. The agreement came after an unprecedented bombing campaign that claimed the lives of more than 47,000 Palestinians and destroyed key civilian infrastructure since 7 October 2023. The violence in Gaza is the most documented genocide of our time, chronicled through both traditional and social media. The ceaseless display of horror often numbed our ability to morally engage with the terror depicted, reducing the victims to mere statistics, stripping them of their individuality. This dehumanization is particularly stark for Palestinian men as the media, international forums and discussions on the condemnation of violence overwhelmingly focus on women and children, rendering men largely invisible.
Yet, amid the overwhelming numbness, certain images and stories break through, stirring deep emotional responses and evoking powerful reactions. One such story is that of Khaled Nabhan, a Palestinian grandfather whose heartfelt mourning for his granddaughter, Reem, became a powerful symbol of Palestinian suffering. Referring to her as the “soul of my soul”, his grief resonated deeply with people around the world. In December 2024, Nabhan himself became a victim of Israeli shelling in the Nuseirat refugee camp. His death reignited the public’s sorrow, with many sharing the image of him cradling Reem’s lifeless body on social media platforms like Instagram and X. This collective mourning over Nabhan’s death became a quiet resistance against the machinery of dehumanization that often erased Palestinian men from narratives of empathy.
The dehumanization of Palestinian men
For decades, Palestinian men have been subjected to systematic dehumanization. In his groundbreaking work Orientalism, Edward Said, himself a Palestinian, exposed the deliberate “othering” of the Arab world, where distinctions between “us” and “them” were constructed through deeply gendered stereotypes. Arab men were portrayed as security threats, as principal agents of fundamentalism, violence and war. In contrast, Arab women were caricatured as submissive victims in need of rescue, often framed through the lens of Western feminist intervention.
This othering of Palestinian men plays a pivotal role in their dehumanization, effectively stripping them of their claim to moral treatment and dignity. Judith Butler, author of Frames of War: When is Life Grievable?, argues that central to the ontological dehumanization lies the issue of representation and how the subjects of war are framed in ways that foster desensitization to their suffering and loss of life. Since 7 October 2023, the context and historical precedence of conflict in Palestine have been glaringly absent from mainstream Western media coverage. The Hamas attack was represented as a murderous rampage without referencing the historical backdrop of Israel’s occupation of Palestine or the systemic violence endured by Palestinians since the Nakba in 1948, thereby reducing it to an irrational act of terror.
Consequently, Israel’s ensuing violence was framed as rightful self-defense. Disinformation such as the debunked claim that Hamas had beheaded 40 Israeli babies portrayed them, and by extension Palestinian men, as bloodthirsty figures deserving of annihilation. The men have also been systematically denied recognition as victims, instead being caricatured as potential terrorists, allegedly responsible for the deaths of women and children in Palestine. A cartoon by Michael Ramirez titled Human Shields is a stark example of the racist and dehumanizing tropes often employed against Palestinian men. This framing justifies the apathy and violence inflicted on Palestinians, whose deaths are often not even acknowledged as killings. Butler argues that for lives to be deemed expendable, they must first be portrayed as less-than-human or placed within a context that reduces them to a status already forfeited – a life deemed unworthy of being lived and therefore a death deemed not worthy to be grieved.
Challenging dehumanization
Amid the genocide, Palestinian men actively constructed alternative forms of masculinity that defied media stereotypes and Western hegemonic masculine ideals, which prioritize stoicism, invulnerability and aggression. Palestinian men displayed a remarkable capacity for care that transcended human relationships. Numerous stories highlighted their dedication to animals in Gaza, refusing to abandon pets and street animals despite extreme hardship. Through their display of gentleness and nurturing abilities, they also challenged traditional masculine stereotypes by embracing qualities typically associated with femininity.
The Palestinian men also exhibited care that went beyond individual relationships, encompassing collective acts of care. Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, who has been detained by Israel under accusations of being a Hamas operative, became the epitome of selflessness. Despite facing immense intimidation and losing his son to an Israeli drone strike, he continued to provide critical care to patients while under constant threat. The final footage of Abu Safiya, serves as a powerful testament. It showed him wearing his doctor’s coat, walking alone through the devastated streets towards an armored Israeli tank, laying bare his bodily vulnerability and exposing the stark power imbalance.
Photojournalists like Motaz Azaiza not only documented the horrors unfolding in Palestine on his Instagram profile but also captured poignant moments of Palestinian men openly expressing their grief and sorrow. These moving images challenged traditional masculine stereotypes that discourage men from showing emotional vulnerability or crying in public, offering a raw and authentic portrayal of male emotional expression. Even under constant threat of bombardment, Palestinian men demonstrated extraordinary resilience and compassion by using their bare hands to rescue survivors, recover the deceased and save injured animals. Azaiza’s documentation captured these men supporting each other through shared grief.
Palestinian scholar Refaat Alareer, who was killed in an Israeli air strike in December 2023, founded the initiative We Are Not Numbers as a way to document the lives of Palestinians, including men, to reclaim their dignity by sharing their stories as they were authentically lived. Alareer himself wrote an evocative piece about his martyr brother, beautifully capturing the memories they shared. Alareer’s project challenged the systematic dehumanization of Palestinians, which compels us to morally engage with the shared humanity rather than setting arbitrary standards for them to qualify for our empathy.
-Alayka Aftab is a PhD scholar in Sociology at Jawaharlal Nehru University, India, where her research focuses on the intersection of gender, economy and religion. Her article appeared in MEMO.