IN response to Hamas’s attack of 7 October 2023, while Israel has declared a war against Hamas, it is actually using its air force and bombarding the civilian population centres in Gaza, which means, it is working on the extermination of the Gaza population. In this context, Israel has attacked even hospitals, water and power supply sources of Gaza, and carried out blockade of Gaza to close all routes of supplies of water, food, medicines and also energy for the Gaza people. And, on the UN appeal, Israel has allowed only limited number of trucks of water, food items and medicines per day and it has yet not allowed the supply of fuel. Whereas, as per the media reports, only three days fuel is left in Gaza, after which no fuel will further strangle the children, women and people of Gaza.
Due to Israel’s bombing of the civilian population in Gaza, as per the Gaza Ministry of Health data contained in the media reports, 5087 civilians have been killed since 7 October 2023. And, this toll includes 62 per cent women and children, while more than 15,273 people have been injured. In addition to the overall death toll, the number of UN staff members working with the Palestine refugee agency UNRWA, has reached 35. A further 18 staffers have been injured. According to the Al-Jazeera report, in Gaza, Israeli air strikes in 23 days of war have destroyed/damaged 22600 residential units, 11 mosques, 19 health centres, 20 ambulances, 70 industrial facilities, and 49 media offices.
On the other hand, according to Israeli official sources quoted by OCHA, some 1,400 people have been killed in Israel, the majority in the Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023 and at least 212 Israeli and foreign nationals are being held captive in Gaza. Two hostages were released last week on humanitarian grounds. Hamas has conditioned the release of all the captives with the cease-fire to be done by Israel.
In view of the above mentioned details, as per the UN definitions, and the Geneva Convention 1949 and its additional protocols signed by almost all member countries of the UN, Israel’s following acts committed during its ongoing war with the Hamas are included in the Geneva Convention war crimes list, under which the concerned Israeli decision makers and military officials can be tried and punished. Israel has attacked the civilian population not taking direct part in hostilities. It has attacked the personnel, installations, material, units or vehicles involved in the humanitarian assistance.
Israel has bombarded towns, villages, dwellings or buildings which are undefended and are not military objectives. It has also attacked buildings, material, medical units and transport, where humanitarian aid groups were residing. It is even impeding the relief supplies. It has also employed the phosphorous bombs, which cause too much human and material loss and are prohibited by the Geneva convention 1949 and its additional protocols.
The above discussed situation has exposed Israel’s intentional indiscriminate bombing of Palestinian civilian’s residences, killing above 5000 Palestinian civilians, and injuring above 14000, including majority of the women and children and erased thousands of civilians’ residences showing its total disregard to the human rights. Israel’s this savage behaviour indicates that it is in fact carrying out the genocide of the Gaza population as has also been stated by the Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas.
And, non condemnation of Israel’s blatant violations of the laws of war, its indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians and erasing to ground of their residential areas and bombing even hospitals and refugee camps, by some of Israel’s friendly countries have also surprised the world and exposed their double standards about the HR violations. Instead of discouraging Israel from bombing the civilians, they are supporting Israel, while it is fighting with a much smaller and much less armed Hamas not having even one tank or a get fighter.
In this context, even a UNSC resolution for stopping the war presented by Brazil was vetoed stating that yet it is not time to stop the war which gives an impression that Israel is being given more time to kill the Palestinian civilians, even their women and children. This impression has been further strengthened with the fact that after 22 days of the war and Palestinian civilians’ slaughter by the Israeli bombing, a resolution was presented at the UNSC stating that Israel has the right to defend itself. Although this resolution has been vetoed by Russia and China, Russia stating that it would mean to allow Israel to slaughter more Palestinian children and China saying that the resolution does not include the clause that the war should be urgently stopped on the humanitarian grounds.
In view of the above discussed pathetic Gaza situation, Israel’s further intensified bombing of Gaza’s civilian population, its earlier and latest warnings to Gaza people for leaving Gaza and become refugees without a place to go, its latest ground offensive started in Gaza, likely to kill more civilians and make them refugees, and to stop Palestinian civilians’ genocide being carried out by Israel, it is very important that all the OIC member countries, in cooperation with other friendly countries, should give a strong message to the major powers/other countries supporting Israel, to review their policies about the continuation of the war by Israel and pressure Israel to urgently stop the almost one sided cruel war, failing which all the Muslim countries will break all kind of relations with Israel.
And that after stopping the war, all the major powers at the UNSC should cooperate to start UNSC supervised time bound and result-oriented dialogue between Israel and Palestine leadership to ensure the two-state solution of the Palestine issue as per the UN resolutions and the Oslo Agreement.
—The writer is also a former Research Fellow of IPRI and Senior Research Fellow of SVI Islamabad.
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