Animal Welfare and Hierarchies of Suffering in Gaza
Asmaa Abu Mezied· Introduction On November 14, 2025, German media described four donkeys transported from Gaza by the Israeli organization Starting Over Sanctuary as having been “rescued,” before they were relocated to a zoo in Oppenheim. The animals were given German names and described as having “left behind hunger and misery, beatings and hardship.” Missing from the coverage was any mention of children in Gaza denied evacuation or of the Israeli genocide and continued attacks on Palestinians following the October 2025 “ceasefire.” This disjuncture—between the visibility and mobility granted to animal suffering and the persistent erasure of Palestinian human life—lies at the heart of a “theater of care.” This commentary examines theater of care as a performance of humanitarian concern shaped by racialized hierarchies of grievability, in which some lives are treated as urgent while others are rendered politically suspect. It advances two arguments: First, animal rescue in Gaza operates within a colonial politics of care that privileges the apolitical innocence attributed to animals while rendering Palestinians less grievable. Second, animal welfare interventions are materially entangled with the dispossession of Palestinian survival infrastructure, particularly when animals essential to daily survival are removed under the guise of protection. It consequently reveals how humanitarian systems channel compassion in ways that manage suffering without demanding structural accountability, turning care into a tool of dispossession. The Politics of Care Humanitarian systems do not respond equally to all suffering. They are structured around particular forms of legibility, most notably the innocent victim, the passive body,...
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