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There must be an independent and expert inquiry into the bombing of Al Ahli Arab Hospital, which killed so many children. Whether it came from an incompetently fired Hamas rocket or a malign Israeli attack is not of immediate concern because it was indubitably a crime against humanity in a war that will continue to kill children unless and until there is a ceasefire.
Yet in the immediate aftermath of the hospital bombing, the United Nations Security Council, the body entrusted to keep world peace, refused to pass a resolution calling for a cease-fire. It was vetoed by the US and France, in deference to Israel’s desire to keep bombing Gaza to “eliminate Hamas”.
Thousands attend a pro-Palestinian march calling for a ceasefire in Gaza in Los Angeles on Saturday.Credit: AP
This is an absurd objective because Hamas is not a substance that can be eliminated. It is an idea, embedded in the Hamas constitution which denies that Israel has any right to exist. This is wrong as a matter of law, but is not capable of elimination from the minds of many of those in the Middle East
Moreover, making total war on the citizens of Gaza has the effect of multiplying support for Hamas and increasing hostility to Israel internationally, as evidenced by the crowds at protests in Australia and London over the weekend, and the increasing criticism by international politicians who were initially inclined to denounce only the Palestinian side.
Although UN agencies have been critical, the organisation itself reached its nadir by failing to pass the ceasefire resolution, thus turning its back on its own charter and its primary purpose, namely “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”. That scourge is unleashed on Ukraine because Russia is a permanent member of the UN which can veto any attempt to stop its unlawful aggression. It is unleashed on Gaza because other permanent members are not willing to restrain Israel.
Of course, Israel has the right to defend itself against the obscene attacks on civilians that started this phase of the war over Gaza which has proved intractable ever since it was captured by Israel in 1967. Indeed, under the Geneva Conventions, Israel has a duty to hunt down the perpetrators of these sadistic war crimes so as to free their hostages and put them on trial.
Families of the people kidnapped, as well as other supporters participate in a rally in Tel Aviv calling for the hostages to be brought home.Credit: Getty
But if they purport to do this by cutting off fuel and food, medicine and water supplies, they commit the war crime of threatening or causing starvation. Furthermore, bombing homes and apartments known to be occupied by civilians taking no part in the hostilities is plainly a war crime: the euphemism “collateral damage” does not apply to direct hits.
With the Security Council unfit for purpose, it devolves upon powerful allies of combatants to persuade or pressure them to abide by international humanitarian law, which applies to armed conflict.
The name itself is something of a bad joke since no war is “humanitarian”, and the only way to stop civilian casualties is to stop the war by a ceasefire or some form of armistice.
Qatar has secured the release of two hostages and must try for more (even at the cost of amnesties for perpetrators) while US President Joe Biden has creditably urged Israel to abandon the “righteous anger” that led his own country after 9/11 to the excesses of Guantanamo Bay.
At least the response so far has been to allow some, although far too few, food trucks into the stricken land, but threats to collectively punish its people remain, in the mouths of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the more right-wing members of his government.
What hope remains for a conflict in which war law is ignored? I can only reply with the words of W. H. Auden:
I and the public know, What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done, Do evil in return.
Nonetheless, and for all the crimes of Hamas, it is necessary to protest against the cruel destruction of Palestinian lives and homes. An eye for an eye is a brutal philosophy. The Israeli version, two eyes for an eye, leads only to moral blindness in Gaza.
The international law solution remains clear, namely that Israel is entitled to exist, to be recognised, and to security, and the Palestinian people are entitled to their territory, to the right of self-determination, and to their own state.
Both sides are under a duty to negotiate to achieve this position but neither has been prepared to give peace this chance. It would be over optimistic to predict an international law solution, or any solution at all.
Geoffrey Robertson KC was the first president of the UN War Crimes Court in Sierra Leone. He wrote Crimes Against Humanity: The Struggle for Global Justice.
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