In a rare and powerful editorial, The Guardian has accused Western governments of fuelling Israel’s war on Gaza through arms sales and diplomatic protection, warning that this complicity is not only killing Palestinians but eroding the foundations of international law.

The paper argued that Gaza’s descent into famine and ruin is no accident, it is the result of a calculated campaign, aided by nations that claim to uphold human rights. Tuesday’s massacre, where Israeli forces gunned down over 50 people waiting for food, was described not as battlefield chaos, but “the outcome of a system that makes relief a deadly target.”

Quoting Médecins Sans Frontières, the editorial described the devastation of Gaza’s homes, hospitals, markets, and water systems as “deliberate destruction of life-sustaining structures.” UN reports cited by the paper say over 90% of Gaza’s schools and universities have been damaged or demolished. “This is not collateral damage,” the paper said, “but civilian annihilation.”

The Guardian denounced the hypocrisy of governments like the UK and the US, which call for international law while continuing to arm and defend Israel. “You cannot condemn war crimes while supplying the weapons to commit them,” the paper stated. “Law ceases to be law if it is not enforced.”

It also exposed the alarming role of the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a private body replacing the UN’s humanitarian system, reportedly run by American mercenaries under Israeli military supervision. With 400 UN aid sites shut down, and only four under GHF control, Gaza’s hunger crisis has turned into what UN officials call a “deadly trap.”

According to The Guardian, the collapse in Gaza is not just infrastructural, it is legal and moral. The West’s selective application of international law, it warned, risks setting fire to the very framework that protects civilians in conflict. And if those protections die in Gaza, they may not survive elsewhere.