It has been a weekend full of activity in Barcelona, especially for the organizers and participants of the Global Sumud Flotilla. Since Friday, August 29, the Moll de la Fusta has hosted the activities prepared by the organization before its scheduled departure on Sunday 31, when more than twenty boats set sail towards Gaza. Hundreds of activists and volunteers from forty-four different nationalities are taking part.

I must begin by saying that the very term “influencer” already gives me an allergic reaction. Although it has existed for three centuries, it has adapted to the times and taken on a new dimension on social media. The original meaning of “influencer,” however, has not really changed. Basically, an individual —the “influencer”— develops and uses their popularity to push something onto you that benefits them. Their interest has more to do with their own ego and profit than with making any useful contribution to society.

It doesn’t feel right. No. It doesn’t feel right to think only about my projects and turn my eyes away from horror. I fear that, if I do, I will end up forgetting the people of Palestine and all those other peoples who suffer the consequences of the modern world. Western societies are responsible for these dishonest actions against Palestine. And I myself feel, even, guilty of belonging to a European country that has always wanted to lecture others on human rights —but now, who the hell will listen to it?—.

Imagine that, in an endless dispute between two states, you feel more sympathy for one than for the other —as if you were watching a football match in which neither team is yours. But imagine that this very State you sympathize with is carrying out one of the greatest massacres in history. You see images of dead and mutilated children, cities reduced to rubble by bombs, while listening to the perpetrators justify it as a natural process of annihilation to exterminate and displace an entire people.

Last night, the Israeli army murdered reporter Anas al-Sharif and the entire Al-Jazeera team in Gaza.

Human empathy is at rock bottom. Nearly gone. The fact that so many people feel nothing while a population suffers the consequences of genocide is a clear sign we’ve hit moral collapse. It’s not an exaggeration to say that with the loss of human values, we’ve lost the very meaning of being. When we devalue the lives of others, we devalue our own.

It’s hard to find even a minimum of empathy. We’ve become detached from reality—both as a society and as individuals. We’re overwhelmed by distractions that keep us from seeing what truly matters.

For days, I’ve been seeing unbearably cruel images online. Gaza is the stage of horror, and almost all the photos and videos circulating show a massacre being broadcast live.

Every day, I share on Instagram and Facebook stories the atrocities I come across in the media: press reports, videos from journalists and media professionals, and especially images filmed on mobile phones by Gazans themselves, documenting their own extermination. The images are so brutal it’s hard to breathe. The suffering of the Palestinian people pierces through the screen.