Mar. 6, 2025
Israeli children have started a disturbing trend on TikTok, where they mock the suffering of Palestinian children in Gaza. In these videos, young Israelis ask their adult relatives to donate to Gazan children, only to provoke anger and insults. The trend has caused shock and highlighted the deep-rooted racism and dehumanization towards the Palestinian people.
In a viral video, a young Israeli girl asks her father to donate to children in Gaza, noting while suppressing her laughter that they are innocent and not affiliated with Hamas. Instead of sympathy, the father erupts in a fit of rage, hurling expletives at Gazan children. He then questions his daughter’s identity, asking, “Are you Jewish or Arab?”
Another video captures a father furiously stating, “These are not humans in Gaza; they are animals.” In a separate clip, a woman, after a barrage of insults, expresses her wish for every child in Gaza to die one by one.
@yosefrovizky קרדיט: @יקיר בר זוהר #yosefrovizky #פוריו #תרומה #כסף #עזה #ילדים #לייב ♬ צליל מקורי – Yosef Rovizky
An Israeli TikTok trend mocking the unbearable suffering of Gazan children has sparked outrage among those who support Palestine, exposing the deep-rooted racism and hatred that dehumanize the Palestinian people. pic.twitter.com/MSDYARyhf0
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) March 5, 2025
These videos have caused widespread shock, exposing a deep-seated culture of dehumanization towards Palestinians. The trend emerges as Gaza faces a humanitarian catastrophe caused by Israel’s genocide, where children are among the most affected victims.
Children in Gaza: Israel’s Primary Target
According to a UN report on verified deaths, 44% of those killed in Gaza were children. Most were between five and nine years old, and 80% died in their homes. Many were crushed under rubble, suffocated, or left to perish without medical aid due to severe shortages. Others endured excruciating pain from untreated wounds, dying without anesthesia or pain relief.
Moments of terror before death remain unknown in most cases. Many families were wiped out entirely, leaving no survivors to tell their stories. One exception was Hind Rajab, a five-year-old girl who pleaded for rescue over the phone before the line went silent amid Israeli gunfire.
Gaza now has nearly 40,000 orphans, thousands of amputees, and hundreds of thousands of displaced children. Schools have been destroyed, and psychological trauma is widespread. More than 20,000 children remain missing, either buried under rubble or in mass graves. Many of them will never be properly mourned, their names lost in statistical obscurity.
Normalizing Hate in Israeli children
Such shocking Israeli TikTok trends are not happening in a vacuum as Israel’s education policies foster racist and dehumanizing attitudes. A report published by Haaretz in 2016 revealed that Israeli middle school students are encouraged to read books that promote Jewish supremacy and anti-Arab sentiment.
Israeli scholar, Professor Nurit Peled-Elhanan, has studied school textbooks and concluded that they systematically instill racism. She describes Israeli apartheid as not just a set of laws but a mindset against native Palestinians.
Since 1953, Israel’s Education Law has mandated that schooling be based on “Jewish cultural values, loyalty to the state, and Zionist ideals.” This ideology prepares young Israelis for future conflicts. In 1982, Israeli Education Minister Zevulun Hammer stated, “The best human being is a Jewish Israeli. We are ready to go to war to ensure this remains true.”
Religious teachings also reinforce superiority. Rabbi Ariel once declared, “Non-Jews were created in human form only to serve Jews, for whom the world was made.”
The Israeli society glorifies military leaders responsible for massacres. In 2009, Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar mandated that all Israeli students study the life of Menachem Begin, founder of the Lehi militia, which carried out the infamous Deir Yassin massacre.
The Israeli education system fosters a close relationship between children and the military. Researcher Hagit Gor Ziv from the Center for Critical Education notes that military themes frequently appear in schoolbooks. In one fifth-grade math textbook, a question reads: “Out of 6,340 trainee soldiers, 2,070 joined the paratroopers, and 1,745 joined the infantry. How many soldiers remain?”
This normalization of militarization is widely seen as a factor in shaping Israeli children’s minds to see violence as an inevitable part of life. In most democratic societies, such educational practices would be considered indoctrination.
Many people see the TikTok trend of mocking Palestinian children’s suffering as a result of years of systemic dehumanization in Israeli society. When children laugh at the suffering of others, it reveals a moral dilemma within a culture shaped by education, politics, and historical narratives.
We remind our readers that publication of articles on our site does not mean that we agree with what is written. Our policy is to publish anything which we consider of interest, so as to assist our readers in forming their opinions. Sometimes we even publish articles with which we totally disagree, since we believe it is important for our readers to be informed on as wide a spectrum of views as possible.
