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Israel began major ground operations in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, with grave concerns of yet more atrocities looming.
The ground offensive follows weeks of Israeli bombardment that have reduced large parts of Gaza to rubble. Reliable sources report thousands of civilians already killed, including thousands of children.
As Israeli ground troops invade the north of the Gaza Strip, Palestinian armed groups are continuing to indiscriminately launch rockets at Israeli communities.
The scale of the current violence is unprecedented, and looking back at previous flare-ups in fighting between Israel and Palestinian armed groups in Gaza would inspire little confidence that we are about to see the restraint needed to prevent further mass atrocity crimes.
During the last major Israeli ground operation into Gaza in July and August 2014, for example, Israeli forces committed numerous war crimes, including fatally firing on civilians.
Palestinian armed groups also deliberately launched numerous rocket attacks towards Israeli communities in 2014, which are war crimes. They also deployed and kept munitions in areas that unnecessarily put civilians at risk.
There’s a whiff of history repeating itself today. There are unverified reports of Hamas using hospitals for military purposes. Those reports are alarming, as are signs Israel may attack them.
International humanitarian law is clear here. Fighters mustn’t exploit hospitals. And even if they do, hospitals enjoy a higher threshold of protection from attack: they shouldn’t be targeted unless used to “commit acts harmful to the enemy,” and after due warning.
Warnings should be clear and cannot be issued for the purpose of disrupting the functioning of the hospital or forcing an evacuation. Ordering patients, medical staff, and others to evacuate should only be used as a last resort.
Those unable to leave retain protections under the laws of war against indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks. Doctors, nurses, and ambulances have to be permitted to do their work and be protected in all circumstances.
In my Daily Briefs about Gaza over the past few weeks, I keep coming back again and again to international humanitarian law, and how all sides are bound by “the laws of war.”
As my expert colleague Clive Baldwin explains clearly in a new article, these laws have existed in some form for thousands of years, but the modern version is set out in the Geneva Conventions of 1949, alongside other treaties and customary international law. The fundamental rule is this: all parties must distinguish, at all times, between combatants and civilians.
Deliberately attacking civilians, taking civilian hostages, and collective punishment – like deliberately impeding the supply of vital aid and services to civilians – are all war crimes.
That’s well and good, you may say, but no one ever gets prosecuted in Israel and Palestine for these things. Too true. Those 2014 events I mention above are a sad example: the perpetrators of war crimes simply got away with them.
Will this time be any different? Will the unprecedented scale of the killings today finally move governments to back justice efforts?
There’s not a lot of hope for this part of the world right now generally but let me try to offer one small sliver of it.
The Prosecutor of International Criminal Court (ICC), Karim Khan, was at the Egypt-Gaza border this weekend saying, among other things:
“There shouldn’t be any impediment to humanitarian relief supplies going to children, women, and men – civilians. They are innocent. They have rights under international humanitarian law… [which] give rise to criminal responsibility when those rights are curtailed…”
In the immediate context of Gaza’s desperate humanitarian situation, it was a much-needed statement. All parties to the conflict have an obligation to facilitate aid and the safe movement of civilians at all times. Civilians should not have to wait for a ceasefire to be negotiated. They have international legal protections with or without one.
In 2021, the ICC prosecutor opened a formal investigation into serious crimes committed by all sides in Palestine, which is a member of the ICC. Karim Khan’s presence at the Rafa crossing into Gaza should make clear the urgency of this investigation.
Governments around the world should commit to ensuring the court has what it needs to do its job.
Water, food, fuel, electricity, security – these are the most immediate needs for the civilians of Gaza, nearly half of whom are children. They also deserve something more, as well: justice.
