It’s been nearly four months since Israel launched its military assault on Gaza, following Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel that killed 1,200 Israelis and captured 240 hostages. United Nations Secretary General António Guterres described the scale of the Israeli military operation’s destruction and killing of civilians as “utterly unacceptable,” as Gaza’s Health Ministry reported that the death toll of Palestinians in the territory has passed 25,000, with most of those killed women and children.
Despite the deaths of tens of thousands of Gaza’s civilian residents, Israel has failed to capture or kill Hamas’ senior leadership or its capacity to fight. And, in defiance of growing worldwide calls for a humanitarian ceasefire, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the war in Gaza will go on for many more months, reiterating his long-standing opposition to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state as a key element in achieving peace in the 75-yearlong Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Michael Lynk, associate professor of law at the University of Western Ontario, Canada and former U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian Territories from 2016 to 2022. Here he examines the ongoing mass death and suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the status of South Africa’s case before the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.
MICHAEL LYNK: War crimes committed by one side does not justify war crimes being committed by another side, no matter how atrocious they are or how much your blood winds up boiling because of what’s happened to you. And it’s, I think, fairly easy to say for most international human rights and humanitarian lawyers, that’s what’s gone on for the last three and a half months in Gaza. There have been multiple war crimes, likely committed by Israel with such an appallingly high death toll with starvation being used as a tool of war.
On the 9th of October, I believe it was, the defense minister said that in Gaza, all food, all water, all power, all fuel was going to be blocked. And indeed, that’s what happened for weeks and weeks. There was no food or water getting into Gaza and again, that would amount to a war crime using starvation or the denials of the necessities of life for civilian population in a conflict zone.
And we’ve had statements now since the beginning or middle of November by every leading UN agency director up to and including the UN secretary general demanding and begging for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire because of the appalling conditions that exist for the 2 million plus civilians in Gaza. Hospitals are almost entirely non-functional. There’s only several as of the last couple days that were even partially operated and I see where the Israeli army entered into one of the last major hospitals that was partially operating in southern Gaza today. So with all of these appalling deaths and particularly injuries that are occurring, there’s virtually no health services able to treat them. They have run short of medical supplies. Amputations without anesthesia.
Very little food. The most we’ve had, I believe since then is about an average of a 100 to 110 trucks entering in over the last month and a half, which barely meets the humanitarian demand for food, water, clothing, shelter, lack of sanitation, all of this.
But what many military experts have said is the most intensive bombing campaign in any war in the 21st century. And we may have to go all the way back to Vietnam or even to the second world war to find a bombing campaign as intensive and is killing so many civilians in such a short period of time.
SCOTT HARRIS: The United States, the United Kingdom and Germany continue to support Israel’s air and ground defensive in Gaza despite worldwide calls to end this war and stop the killing of so many civilians. It seems that there may come a point where President Biden and these other world leaders may attempt to intervene.
But at the same time, you have Israeli officials, most importantly Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who basically have stated that any ceasefire would be in essence surrender to Hamas, meaning he’s not likely to end this war anytime soon.
MICHAEL LYNK: I can’t imagine the war continuing on for another 12 months. I can’t imagine it continuing on for more than a month or so. My hope both as a former special rapporteur, but also as a international human rights lawyer, is that if the International Court of Justice, which heard arguments 10 days ago from South Africa and from Israel on South Africa’s application for provisional measures based on the 1948 Genocide Convention — if, South Africa is successful in getting some or all of its requested provisional measures accepted by the court, that that may be the means by which the United States tries to extricate itself and therefore Israel from continuing to pursue this war, and then to figure out what goes on after that politically and with respect to the humanitarian nightmare that’s in Gaza. So that’s the hope I and many would have now because, we’ve seen resolutions demanding the ceasefire from the UN general assembly, non-binding at the end of November with 151 nations voting in favor of it.
Yet that did not sway the United States from continuing to veto resolutions, calling for ceasefire at the Security Council, which is the only, I guess, political body of the United Nations that can demand obedience to its resolutions, if there’s the political will. We’ve not seen that yet. We’ve seen the United States continuing to defend Israel diplomatically at the UN and continuing to supply it militarily and financially in order to be able to continue to pursue this war. All the while issuing these cautions or mild criticisms of Israel which have not really made much difference in the death toll or the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Michael Lynk (27:02) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the Related Links section of this page.
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