Israel’s Gaza aggression violates core principles of war, international conventions

“Israel has a right to defend itself but how it does so matters” is the mantra of the US and its proxies use when dealing with Israel’s ever-expanding war in this troubled region. The problem is, however, the powers-that-be are committed to the first seven words of the mantra but shrug off the last six qualifying words.

Consequently, ever since Hamas raided Israel on October 7th last year, Israel has had full freedom to act as it pleases. While Israel has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity Western powers have not brought Israel to book.

They have left the job to South Africa and some countries in the global south which have applied to the International Court of Justice to deal with extensive Israeli violations of international.

A panel of judges on the International Criminal Court have been taking its time to issue warrants for the arrest of Israeli prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu and defence minister Yoav Gallant.

Israel has violated the principles of the laws of war by conducting operations without military necessity, making no distinction between combatants and non-combatants, used force without regard for impacts on civilians and “civilian objects, “and caused unnecessary suffering.

While laws of war were laid down by earliest civilisations, the Western powers which have dominated the “modern” scene have for more than a century and a quarter evolved a generally accepted body of laws contained in the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 which were meant to govern states’ behaviour during war.

These conventions were largely ignored during World War I. Following World War II, the victorious Western powers expanded and reinforced the earlier collection of laws by adopting inter alia, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Charter of the United Nations which prohibits the acquisition of territory by force, the Genocide Convention which bans targeting specific communities, and the Geneva Conventions, particularly the Fourth, which regulates behaviour of occupying powers.

The protracted war for Palestine did not begin with October 7, 2023. It began in earnest nearly a century ago with the Palestinian 1935-39 revolt against the country’s British occupiers and plan to install a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The war marched on through Israel’s establishment in 1948-1949. the 1956 Anglo-French-Israeli aggression against Egypt, the 1967 occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, the 1973 October Egyptian-Syrian failed campaign to regain occupied territory, and Israel’s 1978, 1962, 2006 and 2024 offensives in Lebanon and 2008-2009, 2012, 2014, 2021, and ongoing offensives in Gaza. Israel never adhered to the laws of war during this period. Israel initiated all but 1973, the sole conflict launched by Arab states.

Israel’s current offensive in Gaza breaches the both the principles on which the laws of war are based and the conventions mentioned above. Following the killing by Hamas of 1,139 and abduction of 251 Israelis and visitors, Israel has killed nearly 42,000, wounded 98,000 Palestinians, and disappeared 10,000 in Gaza; 70 per cent are women and children.

Ninety per cent of the 2.3 million Gazans have been displaced, most multiple times. At least two-thirds of Gaza’s homes, business premises, schools and public buildings have been damaged or destroyed.

All of Gaza’s universities have been targeted while 17 of Gaza’s 35 hospitals are partially functional. Power plants, water purification and pumping stations, communications networks, and sewage disposal facilities have been destroyed. Israel has blocked the entry and delivery of food, water, medicine and other humanitarian aid and has attacked humanitarian convoys and workers.

Since launching its latest war on Lebanon, Israel has killed more than 2,000 and driven 1.2 million from their homes. After mounting a “limited” and “localised” ground incursion into Lebanon last Monday, Israel has ordered civilians living in 150 towns and villages in the south to evacuate an area, 25 per cent of Lebanon, stretching north to the Awali River.

Israel has driven residents from the Beirut districts of Dahiyeh and Burj Barajneh and has bombed villages in the Bekaa Valley. Israel claims it conducts strikes to eliminate Hizbollah commanders and weapons dumps but kills and maims civilians and destroys their homes. Nowhere is safe. East and West Beirut are overwhelmed with families without possessions.

Schools and public buildings are crowded with displaced and can shelter no more. At least 400,000 Lebanese and Syrians have fled to Syria which is gripped in a severe economic crisis following the civil/proxy war (2011-2019).

The October 7th Hamas attack on Israel and Israelis would not have happened if Israel had agreed to and implemented the “two-state solution”, which would have provided Palestinians with a state.

Instead, successive Israeli governments have relied on war on Gaza and repression in the West Bank to deny Palestinians self-determination while boosting colonisation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Western powers have allowed Israel to pursue this strategy and provided Israel with the weapons and political backing — Israel has the right to defend itself, to carry on indefinitely.

Consequently, the region faces expanding and never-ending conflict while scapegoating Iran which is blamed and demonised for supporting Palestinians, Lebanese and others resisting Israeli military might. What about replying to the mantra favouring Israel by saying “Palestine has the right to defend itself?”