2023-11-04 14:13:23
The Secretary General of the UN, António Guterres Manifested “horrified” for the attack on an ambulance near a hospital in Gaza, whose occupants were killed by Israel, accusing them of being Hamas “terrorists.” The accusation was later denied by the Palestinian Islamist group. However, the United States, which initially opposed voting for a “humanitarian truce” at the UN, This Friday he proposed it to Israel, which in turn rejected it if the 242 hostages are not released first. that Hamas has maintained since its attack on the south of Jewish territory.
In this context, the use of force to force the State or States involved in an armed conflict, It enables the UN Security Council to convene a military force from countries that voluntarily accept it, to enforce its eventual resolutions. It is about sanctioning countries that violate fundamental principles expressed in the UN Charter, an instrument that the 193 States must ratify upon joining that supranational organization.
For the veto of the 5 countries that triumphed in World War II (United States, Russia, China, Great Britain and France) the UN Security Council It has not done so with the war between Hamas and Israel. The only existing resolution is the one adopted by the General Assembly, the “Parliament” of the UN, on “the protection of civilians and compliance with legal and humanitarian obligations”, through a truce, which has not yet been observed.
It was last October 27, during the “Tenth Emergency Extraordinary Session” on “illegal Israeli measures in Occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory.” Also at the request of the UN General Assembly, today there are 123 countries that adhere to the International Criminal Court (ICC), empowered since 1998 to criminally prosecute those who have committed genocide, crimes against humanity, war and aggression. It is up to the ICC Prosecutor, Karim Khan, to indict, who has not yet commented. He has an open case since 2021 and on October 29, Khan entered Gaza en route to Israel. Tel Aviv did not ratify the ICC statutes, but they were ratified by the Palestinian Authority, recognized by 138 Nations. Whatever body tries to define the conflict, it could use as reference sources the so-called “laws of war”, which establish the principles of International Humanitarian Law, specifically the 4 Geneva Conventions of 1949 and its 2 Additional Protocols of 1977. (Louis Joinet, “The Administration of Justice and the Human Rights of Detainees”, UN Commission on Human Rights, Geneva, June 20, 1996).
These apply “to civilians and those no longer fighting, and prohibit torture, summary execution and denial of a fair trial.” However, it would now exclude “the status of prisoner”, reserved “for conflicts between States”, since Israel is one but not Hamas. (Robert Goldman, “Ethic”, Spain, October 16, 2023).
It should be noted that Israel withdrew from governing Gaza in 2005. Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority took over and was expelled by Hamas in 2007. However, as Israel controls the borders, airspace and the supply of most part of its electricity in Gaza, could be defined today as an “occupying power.” In any case, “the outbreak of hostilities between Hamas and Israel would trigger the entire laws of war” (Robert Goldman, “Ethic”, Spain, October 16, 2023).
The principles for evaluating acts of war will be at least two: intentionality and proportionality. The first refers to the will of the author of the act. To the evidence and arguments of what he wanted to do, in light of what he did. The second “prohibits an attack against a military objective that could foreseeably cause excessive or disproportionate civilian casualties in relation to the advantage expected to be obtained from the destruction of the objective,” says the aforementioned Goldman, of the Washington College of Law de la American University. He adds that Hamas, “as it has systematically done in the past, uses its civilians and now hostages to protect military objectives. Although Israel is primarily responsible for avoiding excessive civilian deaths in its bombardment of Gaza, the ability of “Hamas to claim that the bombing constitutes a war crime would be weakened by deliberately putting its own population in danger. Where can a million people go to safety when the borders are closed and military targets are being attacked throughout Gaza?” .
Goldman adds that “blocking the entry of all food, water and medicine and cutting off electricity – as appears to be happening in Gaza – will disproportionately affect civilians, predictably causing them to starve.” It would be “a method of war prohibited by International Humanitarian Law (IHL).” This “does not allow an aggrieved party to respond in the same way. The violation of the law by one of the parties cannot, in principle, justify or sanction actions by the other that violate the established prohibitions of IHL.”
“Israel, the United States and other countries label Hamas fighters as terrorists. Hamas’s recent acts – indiscriminately firing thousands of rockets into Israel, attacking, killing and taking civilians hostage – are acts of war terrorism and qualify as war crimes,” concluded Robert Goldman, interviewed by the Spanish portal Ethic. Hamas reported 9,227 deaths, including 3,826 children. Israel admitted 341 soldiers killed in combat.
*From Geneva, Switzerland.
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