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Pep Guardiola: ‘if we don’t speak up on the Gaza genocide, our kids will be next’

Football legend Pep Guardiola has used a speech to warn against silence on the ongoing US-Israeli genocide in occupied Gaza, which has killed over 17,000 children so far. In particular, he said, we should be aware that “the next four/five-year-old kids will be ours”. That’s why we must do our part, speaking out and taking action against the atrocities and our governments’ complicity.

Pep Guardiola: speaking out

Pep Guardiola is arguably one of the best football managers of all time. Currently at Manchester City, he has just received an honorary degree at the University of Manchester, which has previously faced pressure from students over its ongoing complicity with Israeli crimes. And he used his platform to express the pain he feels as a result of what’s happening in Gaza, urging the world to stand up in solidarity with the people Israel is currently starving to death.

It’s so painful what we see in Gaza. It hurts me [in] all my body… It’s not about ideology… It’s just about the love of life, about the care of your neighbour. Maybe we think that we see the boys and girls of four years old being killed [by] the bomb or being killed at the hospital… is not our business… But be careful, the next one will be ours. The next four/five-year-old kids will be ours… I see my kids… when I see every morning – since the nightmare started – the infants in Gaza, and I’m so f*cking scared.

He then told a story about a forest fire, with a bird bringing back a drop of water from the sea to play its part in putting the fire out. “It refused to do nothing”, he said, before adding:

In a world that often tells us that we’re too small to make a difference, that story reminds me the power of one is… about showing up, about refusing to be silent or still when it matters the most.

For all our children, we must not let this become the global norm

Last week, one British surgeon said he’d witnessed Israel’s campaign of “mass murder and mutilation” in Gaza, calling it “the most appalling humanitarian catastrophe of our young century”. Another said children were entering hospital as if on a “conveyor belt“. She added that:

I was running an operating list and everyday at least half of the people on it were under the age of 11

Israel’s genocide has taken a massive toll on Gaza’s children, killing around one per hour since October 2023. And in this context, it’s hardly surprising to hear Save the Children’s humanitarian director Rachael Cummings saying:

Children are sharing with us now that they wish to be dead… [they] see no hope, they see no future.

This is, indeed, the mission for many politicians leading Israel’s settler-colonial project in Palestine. Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, for example, wants to “kill the de facto Palestinian state”. And he promised last month that people in Gaza:

will be totally despairing, understanding that there is no hope and nothing to look for in Gaza, and will be looking for relocation to begin a new life in other places.

Pep Guardiola also mentioned the wars that continue to rage in Sudan (reportedly with the backing of Western allies Turkey and the United Arab Emirates) and Ukraine. And he criticised politicians who have miserably failed to take meaningful action to end the:

horror of thousands and thousands of innocent children, innocent mothers and fathers, innocent entire families, suffering, starving, being killed

As Pep Guardiola said, it may be scary to speak up and take action. But we must play our part anyway. Because we must not allow the horrors we have seen so vividly since 2023 to become the global norm.

Featured image via the Canary

By Ed Sykes

This post was originally published on Canary.