Invisible Harm in a Visible War: A Thematic Analysis of Slow Violence and Engaged Vulnerability in the Denial of Children's Health Rights in Gaza

Abstract

This thesis investigates the systematic denial of Palestinian children’s right to health under Israel’s prolonged blockade of the Gaza Strip, with a focus on how this crisis reflects structural violations of international human rights law and entrenched forms of violence. Grounded in Article 24 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the study applies Rob Nixon’s theory of slow violence and Don Kulick’s concept of engaged vulnerability as analytical tools to examine how long-term policies produce lasting harm. The analysis is based on a thematic analysis of three humanitarian and legal reports published in 2024, which serve as the main empirical sources. The study identifies central patterns of violation, including the weaponisation of food access, the breakdown of mental health services, and the erosion of food sovereignty. These findings show that the vulnerability of Palestinian children is not a natural condition but one produced by political neglect, systemic deprivation, and deliberate state action. The thesis argues that it represents a breach of legal obligations and a moral failure. It demonstrates that the blockade amounts to slow violence, with effects that unfold gradually but severely, with consequences that are often hidden yet deeply damaging to children’s lives and futures.

By interpreting these patterns through a rights-based framework, the thesis concludes that the blockade constitutes a breach of binding international obligations and represents a form of slow violence, its effects gradual, cumulative, and harmful to children’s health and futures. The integration of engaged vulnerability also reveals how caregivers and affected communities resist invisibilisation by making children’s suffering visible in demands for justice. These frameworks bring into focus forms of harm that dominant legal or humanitarian discourses often overlook, such as the erosion of rights, protections, and futures and expose how time, visibility, and accountability are manipulated to obscure responsibility. The study highlights the need for a recalibrated international response that centers children’s rights and legal accountability. In doing so, it contributes to broader debates on how legal and theoretical approaches can expose and challenge structural injustices in protracted conflict zones.