And the victims do not stop increasing. Since the hundred Israelis killed on October 7 at the hands of Hamas. Up to 11,000 Palestinian civilians due to the incessant Israeli bombings on Gaza. Among them, 4,100 children, as the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, has just publicly reminded us.
These are just some of the already known tremendous costs to humanity of the ongoing conflict. Just as is the brutal “scorched earth” underway against Gaza, with tens of thousands of displaced/refugees and most houses and other buildings destroyed. Guterres also recalled that more journalists have died in these four weeks than in any other conflict in at least three decades. Likewise, 89 UN officials dead; an unprecedented event, due to its magnitude, in the war history of recent decades.
But this is, in the end, just a kind of “photo” of the incessant impact of war on the civilian population. Meanwhile, the Israeli reactions to the repeated – and logical – ceasefire proposals by the UN Secretary General sound excessive. Although it may sound horrendous, we observe a situation that is a kind of “manual”—or summary—of violations of international humanitarian law.
Within this tremendous context, which today seems hopeless, two issues are particularly relevant to what may come next. This, in the optimistic scenario that the fumes of war prevailing today will subside.
First, the viability of a hypothetical future negotiation that recovers the objective – now illusory – of the two States, one Jewish and the other Palestinian. Which, as is known, is what was at the basis of the creation of Israel by the UN in 1947. At the moment it seems very difficult, if not impossible.
To Netanyahu’s well-known radical opposition to such a path is now added the persistent Israeli bombing of Gaza. That beyond the political or psychosocial effects on the massively affected Palestinian population, points to the Palestinian depopulation of Gaza, particularly its northern area. There is no figure, but there must be tens of thousands who have already left the area and there is a sign of depopulation of Palestinians.
In this logic, the hypothetical outcome of a negotiation towards the two States would be illusory as millions of Palestinians are being displaced from their soil. Beyond the humanitarian reasons for demanding an end to the bombings, there is another international responsibility and obligation: to preserve the Palestinian presence in areas that, in theory at least, should be part of the hypothetical Palestinian State.
Brutally depopulated, they could hardly be a solid basis to establish a State there with all the laws of the law. And, with this, the UN claims for more than seven decades of having two States in the area were undermined.
Second: the ostensible string of ongoing violations of international law. What comes next? Difficult to think that “nothing” or impunity.
We come from very laborious decades of perfecting international law and affirming international courts that have put people’s rights as a priority. Since the United Nations was established 78 years ago, the Geneva Conventions (1949) were agreed, for example. And the International Criminal Court (ICC) was created with the Rome Statute, in force since 2002. A true international criminal code on serious crimes. And regional human rights courts were also created in Europe, America and Africa.
Humanity has and will have a trial by fire that challenges this institutional framework built over decades. That, in order not to cut off the logic of history, they should aim in the present to manage the relative abstraction of “the States” and respond, in the meantime, to these affronts to international law.
For example, beyond the standards provided for in the international humanitarian law norms of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, there is international criminal justice. Today it has existed since the Rome Statute, the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court (ICC), came into force in 2002. The particularity of international criminal norms gives clear jurisdiction to the Court to act. And investigate and, if applicable, prosecute, individuals accused of being responsible, not States. Therefore, the identification today of the authorities that could be responsible leads to those people being the ones who would have to respond at the time. As is evident, it is not difficult to think of possible names of individuals who could be the subject of investigation/prosecution.
The range of possible criminal figures involved in this case could be very wide. It would be necessary to refer to the ICC Statute, which defines several crimes that could be of pertinent reference in what is happening in Israel/Palestine. It is debated, for example, whether Israel would be committing genocide or not. There are conflicting positions among prominent internationalists.
But when reference is made to other more obvious criminal figures provided for in the Rome Statute, the reality data could point more directly to crimes clearly classified there. For example, crimes against humanity, regulated in detail in article 7 of the Statute. Or war crimes (article 8). I invite the reader to review these articles and several events will probably come to mind, such as those that have been happening in Gaza for weeks.
If the ICC Prosecutor’s Office so decided, it could formalize an investigation process and, where appropriate, open proceedings against people who could be considered responsible. It should be noted that a couple of weeks ago the ICC Prosecutor, Karim Khan, visited the Rafa crossing, on the border with Gaza. It is suspected that he did it not for a walk but based on possible steps he could take. Given that the ICC has jurisdiction over events that occurred in Palestinian areas, such as the raided and bombed Gaza and its 4,000 dead children, this is a course of evolution of things that must be followed closely.
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