Former Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki has declared that the atrocities unfolding in Gaza “go far beyond ethnic cleansing,” describing them as a full-scale genocide and a moral disgrace for the international community. He stressed that the massacres, forced displacement, and mass destruction inflicted on more than two million people represent a crime of extermination, not a conventional conflict.

Marzouki denounced the global silence as “a slap in the face of the world and all human values,” arguing that Western governments, while preaching human rights, have confined themselves to empty statements and symbolic appeals. He called on civil society, intellectuals, and political leaders to act urgently where states have failed, warning that Gaza is only the first stage of a wider project of dispossession targeting Palestinians in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and within the 1948 territories.

He pointed to the staggering toll, over 65,000 killed and more than 166,000 injured, alongside the deliberate starvation policies that have plunged Gaza into famine. A recent UN commission confirmed that genocide is being committed and continues unabated, with responsibility lying squarely with Israel. Marzouki warned that unless the world acts, the eradication of the Palestinian presence will become a grim reality, exposing not only Israel’s crimes but also the collapse of the international order that once claimed to stand for justice.