AS the world welcomes the new year with celebrations, fireworks and hopes for a fresh start, the Palestinians are forced to continue to lose hope. As for fireworks, they are deadly, not celebratory, in Gaza. All that the Palestinians have on their heads is a canopy of dust and despair and shattered dreams. Gaza and its people spent the whole 2024 facing senseless bombing by the Zionists in Israel. With more than 45,000 deaths and over a 100,000 injured, the atrocities in Gaza make up for a textbook case of genocide. People in Gaza are supposed to be treated as humans with dignity, but Israel and its patrons in the West, especially the United States, have no such plans even when they know they are the ones viol- ating each and every international law. It seems as if, for the West, the Palestinians do not fall within the category of humans. AS the world welcomes the new year with celebrations, fireworks and hopes for a fresh start, the Palestinians are forced to continue to lose hope. As for fireworks, they are deadly, not celebratory, in Gaza. All that the Palestinians have on their heads is a canopy of dust and despair and shattered dreams. Gaza and its people spent the whole 2024 facing senseless bombing by the Zionists in Israel. With more than 45,000 deaths and over a 100,000 injured, the atrocities in Gaza make up for a textbook case of genocide. People in Gaza are supposed to be treated as humans with dignity, but Israel and its patrons in the West, especially the United States, have no such plans even when they know they are the ones viol- ating each and every international law. It seems as if, for the West, the Palestinians do not fall within the category of humans.