Colin Sheridan: Giving up on Gaza now is a surrender to immorality that will shame our children

My friend's mother buried her son the aid worker in her head every day for a year. She is still inconsolable about the Palestinian children she has never met — why aren't the rest of us?

GAZA CITY, GAZA - JUNE 24: A general view of the makeshift tents housing Palestinians and buildings destroyed in Israeli attacks as deprived of basic needs such as shelter, food and clean water, Palestinians struggle to survive in difficult living conditions in the Sheikh Ridvan neighborhood of Gaza City, Gaza on June 24, 2025. The humanitarian crisis experienced by Gazans trying to survive in tents or on the rubble of collapsed buildings is escalating day by day due to Israel's attacks and blockade. (Photo by Mahmoud Issa/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Whenever I struggle with my own inadequacy regarding Palestine, I think of my friend's 80-year-old mother. Her son — an Irishman working for Unrwa — spent about 500 of the now 621 days of genocide in Gaza, risking his life to do a job he will never talk about. 

She would often suffer a week without hearing from him, unaware if he was alive or dead. Despite everybody telling her to do otherwise, she devoured every piece of footage she could, traumatising herself in the hope of catching some proof of life.