The question that has been haunting me is, how many people — especially children — must die in Gaza before the Israeli military feels satisfied and agrees to a ceasefire?

The most recent figures on the number of civilian deaths stands at 7,000, with child deaths approaching 3,000.

The foundation of my perspective on these circumstances dates back to my earliest Sunday school experience when I came to deeply appreciate that all children are precious. So I was stunned by the tragic actions of Hamas on October 7, which led to the deaths of 1,400 Israeli men, women and children. From the published reports, this constituted a war crime.

However, from the initial actions and statements of Israeli leaders, as well as the unprecedented bombing of this 25-square-mile “open prison” where 2.4 million Palestinians are inhabitant — half of whom are children — the Israeli military are engaged in an ongoing war crime.

The New York Times has reported that in the first six days, Israeli jets dropped more bombs on these defenceless people than the United States did in the first year of the Afghanistan war.

To offer some context to the circumstances facing the blockaded Palestinians crammed in that tiny area, former British prime minister David Cameron — having surveyed the conditions on the ground in 2010 — described Gaza as “the world’s largest prison camp”. The late and highly noted Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling described this “home” for 2.4 million people, as the “largest-ever concentration camp”.

Given the unprecedented levels of civilian death, people around the world have been demonstrating by the hundreds of thousands. Young Jewish-Americans protested the reality that their government was aiding and abetting the blockading of water, food, fuel and medicines, while airstrikes have targeted hospitals, clinics and homes. Three hundred of them were arrested for sit-ins at the US Capitol.

The Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, has called for an immediate ceasefire and a humanitarian response to address the ongoing collective punishment that is being meted out to the Palestinians. On Friday, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly supported the Secretary-General’s call for a ceasefire by a vote of 121-14 with 44 abstentions. This after the US twisted many arms in its continued “blank-cheque approach” to the regime of Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

It is interesting to note that even Britain and Canada, who have been blindly following the White House line, failed to vote against the resolution, but instead abstained. The British response seems to be something of a shift, reflected by unprecedented crowds across Britain calling for an immediate ceasefire.

Implicit in this crisis is a recognition that this tragedy is linked to the reality that many millions of Palestinians have been suffering from conditions of oppression, which began at least in 1948 when the state of Israel was imposed by power elites of that day, displacing those who had been indigenous to the area for many generations.

A fuller appreciation of this story is available from some Jewish scholars who have fully researched the legacy and challenged the “official” narrative of justification. Key in this regard is an awareness of the difference between Judaism, a religion, and Zionism, a political ideology:

• Ilan Pappé: former Professor of History at the University of Haifa (Israel) who through circumstances is now at the University of Exeter in England. He served as a conscripted Israeli soldier during the 1967 Six Day War.

• Gabor Maté: a Hungarian-Canadian physician who was born in Hungary during the Holocaust, where his grandparents were killed in a concentration camp before his parents migrated to Canada

• Norman Finkelstein: professor at a variety of US universities. His parents had survived two different concentration camps. Among his books is one specifically on Gaza.

The present crisis with its global implications, while potentially depressing and dangerous, offers the human family an opportunity to do some deep learning on these circumstances and something about ourselves — collectively and personally.

• Glenn Fubler represents Imagine Bermuda