More than 21,000 people have been killed in Gaza in just under three months, and many more are at risk of illness and death due to Israel’s ongoing indiscriminate bombardment, ground invasion and siege. Settler violence and killings by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank have also increased significantly.

In media reporting and in reports from human rights organizations, international institutions and NGOs, especially in the WestAttention was drawn primarily to Israel’s attacks on Palestinian women and children. Examples of this are the often quoted number of more than 8,000 children It is reported that many children have undergone amputations without anesthesia.

Even governments allied with Israel have expressed concern about the ever-increasing number of dead Palestinian women and children. French President Emmanuel Macron, for example, said: “These babies, these ladies, these old people are being bombed and killed.” So there is no reason and no legitimacy for that.” While such statements rightly denounce the killing of women and children in Palestine, ignore the killing of men.

This refusal to explicitly count and mourn their dead denies Palestinian men civil status. Their humanity is erased and they are portrayed collectively as “dangerous brown men” and “potential terrorists.”

This in turn allows Israel to kill Palestinian men.

Their killing is permitted precisely because they are Palestinian men. Their gendered and racist status, particularly their blanket designation as “Hamas terrorists,” eclipses their civilian status and deems them killable and unmournable. Their killing is excused and justified as part of the “fight against terrorism.”

For example, Tzipi Hotovely, Israel’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, claimed in a television interview in November that “over 50 percent” of the people Israel killed in this latest round of violence in Gaza were “terrorists.” For this percentage to be even remotely accurate, all dead men (and even older boys) in Gaza must be considered “terrorists,” or at least “aspiring terrorists.”

The blanket demonization of men – underpinned by narratives about brown, particularly Arab men, being inherently untrustworthy, dangerous and radical – is not new. These narratives are currently used by Israel and its countries Allies To excuse genocidal violence in Palestine, they have been used repeatedly over the years to justify the mass killing of brown men and boys, including in the context of the so-called global “war on terror” and the illegal invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan .

This is no coincidence. Colonialism and genocide require the erasure of people’s humanity and history. Israel’s settler colonialism maintains its dominance through violence and legitimizes that violence by denying the existence of a Palestinian nation and portraying Palestinians as less than human.

Over the past three months, Israel has killed, maimed and starved tens of thousands of Palestinians. In Gaza, Palestinian men and women dig their loved ones out from under bombed buildings and bury their children with their bare hands.

But none of this has been recognized for what it is – serious crimes against civilians. And the experiences of Palestinian men are completely ignored. They are stripped of any complexity that underlines their humanity. They are not seen as the bakers, paramedics, journalists, poets, shopkeepers, fathers, sons and brothers that they are, but are branded en masse as “terrorists”. In life they are reduced to goals that need to be eliminated. In the event of death, they are considered “collateral damage” at best. At worst, their violent killing is celebrated as a victory against “terrorism.”

Of course, like all people, Palestinian men have feelings. And yet her fears, her heartbreak, her fear, her frustration, or her shame are consistently erased from any narrative about her. The only emotion recognized in Palestinian men is anger. Yet this anger is not recognized as a legitimate response to colonial violence and settler oppression. Instead, it is seen as barbaric, irrational and dangerous rage. A rage that requires extreme control measures such as total sieges or carpet bombing.

None of this is new, given Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestine and its apartheid regime. This latest chapter has simply accelerated a process DehumanizationDemonization and destruction that has been going on for a long time.

The tropes about Palestinian men, their inherent violence and barbaric rage have two major consequences. First, they pose an existential threat to Palestinian men and boys in the occupied Palestinian territories and beyond by allowing them to be mutilated and murdered. Second, they make it impossible to end the violence because they contribute to labeling half of the Palestinian population as dangerous and unreliable.

The following course correction measures will be necessary in the future:

Narratives of “radicalization” used by Israel and its allies to justify violence, such as collective punishment, must be challenged. Any agreement to release prisoners must include Palestinian men, such as hundreds held in so-called administrative detention. If another “humanitarian pause” or hopefully a permanent ceasefire is agreed, assistance will need to be provided to meet the needs of boys and men alongside the needs of the rest of the population. Illegal settlers should be held accountable for the violence they have inflicted on the Palestinian people, including Palestinian men and boys killed disproportionately. In the longer term, the Palestinians’ right to self-determination, the impact of militarization on Israeli society and the intergenerational impact of settler colonialism on Palestinian society must be recognized.

Today, Palestinians in Gaza and the rest of the occupied territories are experiencing unacceptable horrors. Israel’s current attacks on Gaza as well as the decades-long occupation of Palestine and the apartheid regime must come to an end. Palestinians – men, women and children – must be given the space to mourn what has been lost, heal their wounds and build a future. For this to be possible, the humanity of Palestinians – all Palestinians – must first be accepted. Palestinian men and boys in life and death must be meaningfully recognized.

The views expressed in this article are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.