The case for the charge of genocide

Articles from Marjorie Cohn and Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, Ceasefire

Gaza’s main power plant destroyed, July 29, 2014. Photo by Mohammed Salem / Reuters

Tallying Israeli War Crimes

For decades, Israel has slaughtered Palestinians with impunity, always protected by the U.S. government and its veto at the UN Security Council. But the latest bloody assault on Gaza has prompted more open talk about Israeli war crimes — and U.S. complicity, says Marjorie Cohn.

By Marjorie Cohn, Consortium News
August 8, 2014

By sending vast amounts of military aid to Israel, members of the U.S. Congress, President George W. Bush, President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel have aided and abetted the commission of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity by Israeli officials and commanders in Gaza.

An individual can be convicted of a war crime, genocide or a crime against humanity in the ICC if he or she “aids, abets or otherwise assists” in the commission or attempted commission of the crime, “including providing the means for its commission.”

There is growing evidence that Israeli leaders and commanders have committed war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity as defined in the Rome Statute for the ICC. U.S. military aid has aided, abetted and assisted the commission of these crimes by providing Israel with the military means to commit them.

During Operation Protective Edge, Israeli forces again used the Dahiye Doctrine, which, according to the UN Human Rights Council [Goldstone] Report, involves “the application of disproportionate force and causing of great damage and destruction to civilian property and infrastructure, and suffering to civilian populations.”

According to the Congressional Research Service, in 2007, the Bush Administration agreed to provide Israel with $30 billion in military assistance from 2009 to 2018, provided in annual increments of $3.1 billion. During his March 2013 visit to Israel, Obama pledged that the U.S. would continue to provide Israel with multi-year commitments of military aid subject to the approval of Congress.

Since 2012, the U.S. has sent $276 million worth of weapons and munitions to Israel, not including exports of military transport equipment and high technologies. From January to May 2014, the U.S. transferred to Israel almost $27 million for rocket launchers, $9.3 million worth of parts of guided missiles and nearly $762,000 for bombs, grenades and munitions of war.

On July 20, 2014, Israel requested additional ammunition, including 140mm tank rounds and 40mm illumination grenades, and the Defense Department approved the sale three days later. It came from a $1 billion stockpile of ammunition the U.S. military stores in Israel for that country’s use; it is called War Reserve Stockpile Ammunition-Israel.

In early August 2014, both houses of Congress overwhelmingly passed, and Obama signed, an appropriation of $225 million for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, which has also been used in Gaza. The Senate vote was unanimous. With no debate, the House of Representatives voted 395 to 8 to approve the deal.

War crimes

Here is a summary of the crimes, as defined in the Rome Statute, that Israeli leaders have committed and U.S. leaders have aided and abetted:

(1) Willful killing: Israeli forces have killed nearly 2,000 Palestinians (more than 400 children and over 80 percent civilians). Israel used 155-millimeter artillery, which, according toHuman Rights Watch, is “utterly inappropriate in a densely populated area, because this kind of artillery is considered accurate if it lands anyplace within a 50-meter radius.”

(2) Willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health: Nearly10,000 people, 2,500 of them children, have been wounded. Naban Abu Shaar told the Daily Beast that the dead bodies from what appeared to be a “mass execution” in Khuza’a looked like they were “melted” and were piled on top of each other; assault rifle bullet casings found in the house were marked “IMI” (Israel Military Industries).

UNICEF said the Israeli offensive has had a “catastrophic and tragic impact” on children in Gaza; about 373,000 children have had traumatic experiences and need psychological help. The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said: “There’s a public health catastrophe going on. You know, most of the medical facilities in Gaza are non-operational.”

(3) Unlawful and wanton, extensive destruction and appropriation of property not justified by military necessity: Tens of thousands of Palestinians have lost their homes. More than 1,300 buildings were destroyed and 752 were severely damaged. Damage to sewer and water infrastructure has affected two-thirds of Gazans. On July 20, Israeli forces virtually flattened the small town of Khuza’a; one man counted 360 shell attacks in one hour.

Reconstruction of Gaza is estimated to cost $6 billion. Israel shrunk Gaza’s habitable land mass by 44 percent, establishing a 3 km “no-go” zone for Palestinians; 147 square miles of land will be compressed into 82 square miles. Oxfam described the level of destruction as “outrageous … much worse than anything we have seen in previous [Israeli] military operations.”

(4) Willfully depriving a prisoner of war or a civilian the rights of fair and regular trial: Nearly 2,000 Palestinians were arrested by Israeli forces during July 2014, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Center for Studies. Prisoners include 15 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, about 240 children, dozens of women, journalists, activists, academics and 62 former prisoners previously released in a prisoner exchange.

Israeli forces executed many prisoners after arrest, either by directly firing on them, refusing to allow treatment or allowing them to bleed to death. More than 445 prisoners are being held without charge or trial under administrative detention.

(5) Intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population, civilian objects, or humanitarian vehicles, installations and personnel: “The civilian population in the Gaza Strip is under direct attack,” reads a joint declaration of over 150 international law experts. Israeli forces violated the principle of “distinction,” which forbids deliberate attacks on civilians or civilian objects.

Israeli forces bombed 142 schools (89 run by the UN), including six UN schools in which civilians were taking refuge. Israeli forces shot and killed fleeing civilians (warnings, which must effectively give civilians time to flee before bombing, do not relieve Israel from its legal obligations not to target civilians). Israeli forces repeatedly bombed Gaza’s only power plant and other infrastructure, which are “beyond repair.” Israeli forces bombed one-third of Gaza’s hospitals, 14 primary healthcare clinics and 29 ambulances. At least five medical staff were killed and tens of others were injured.

(6) Intentionally launching attacks with knowledge they will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or long-term severe damage to the natural environment, if they are clearly excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage: The principle of “proportionality” forbids disproportionate and excessive civilian casualties compared to the claimed military advantage gained in the attack.

The Dahiye Doctrine* directly violates this principle. Responding to Hamas’ rockets with 155-millimeter artillery is disproportionate. Although nearly 2,000 Palestinians (over 80 percent civilians) have been killed, 67 Israelis (all but three of them soldiers) have been killed. The coordinates of all UN facilities were repeatedly communicated to the Israeli forces; they nevertheless bombed them multiple times. Civilians were attacked in Shuja’iyyah market.

(7) Attacking or bombarding undefended towns, villages, dwellings or buildings, or intentionally attacking religious, educational and medical buildings, which are not military objectives: On July 20, Israeli forces virtually flattened the small town of Khuza’a; one man counted 360 shell attacks in one hour. Israeli forces bombed 142 schools (89 run by the UN), one-third of Gaza’s hospitals, 14 primary healthcare clinics, and 29 ambulances. Israeli shelling completely destroyed 41 mosques and partially destroyed 120 mosques.

Genocide

(a) With the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group: Palestinians, including primarily civilians, and Palestinian infrastructure necessary to sustain life were deliberately targeted by Israeli forces.

(b) The commission of any of the following acts

(i) killing members of the group: Israeli forces killed nearly 2,000 Palestinians.
(ii) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group: Israeli forces wounded 10,000 Palestinians.
(iii) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its destruction in whole or in part: Israeli forces devastated Gaza’s infrastructure, knocking out Gaza’s only power plant, and destroying homes, schools, buildings, mosques and hospitals.

Crimes against humanity

(A) The commission of murder as part of a widespread or systematic attack against any civilian population: Israeli forces relentlessly bombed Gaza for one month, killing nearly 2,000 Palestinians, more than 80 percent of whom were civilians. Israeli forces intentionally destroyed Gaza’s infrastructure, knocking out Gaza’s only power plant, and destroying homes, schools, buildings, mosques and hospitals.

(B) Persecution against a group or collectivity based on its political, racial, national, ethnic or religious character, as part of a widespread or systematic attack against any civilian population: Israeli forces killed, wounded, summarily executed, and administratively detained Palestinians, Hamas forces and civilians alike. Israel forces intentionally destroyed the infrastructure of Gaza, populated by Palestinians.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said: “the massive death and destruction in Gaza have shocked and shamed the world.” He added the repeated bombing of UN shelters facilities in Gaza was “outrageous, unacceptable and unjustifiable.”

(C) The crime of apartheid (inhumane acts committed in the context of an institutional regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over another racial group, with the intent to maintain that regime): Ali Hayek, head of Gaza’s federation of industries representing 3,900 businesses that employ 35,000 people, said: “After 30 days of war, the economic situation has become, like, dead. It seems the occupation intentionally destroyed these vital factories that constitute the backbone of the society.”

Israel maintains an illegal barrier wall that encroaches on Palestinian territory and builds illegal Jewish settlements on Palestinian lands. Israel keeps Gazans caged in what many call “the world’s largest open air prison.” Israel controls all ingress and egress to Gaza, limits Gazans’ access to medicine, subjects Palestinians to arbitrary arrest, expropriates their property, maintains separate areas and roads, segregated housing, different legal and educational systems for Palestinians and Jews and prevents mixed marriages. Only Jews, not Palestinians, have the right to return to Israel-Palestine.

Collective Punishment

Although the Rome Statute does not include the crime of collective punishment, it is considered a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which constitutes a war crime. Collective punishment means punishing a civilian for an offense he or she has not personally committed; it forbids reprisals against civilians and their property (civilian objects).

Ostensibly to root out Hamas fighters, Israel has wreaked unprecedented devastation on the people of Gaza, killing nearly 2,000 people (more than 80 percent of them civilians) and destroying much of the infrastructure of Gaza. This constitutes collective punishment.

On Aug. 5, 2014, veteran Israeli military advisor Giora Eiland advocated collective punishment of Gaza’s civilian population, saying: “In order to guarantee our interests versus the other side’s demands, we must avoid the artificial, wrong and dangerous distinction between the Hamas people, who are ‘the bad guys,’ and Gaza’s residents, which are allegedly ‘the good guys.’” That is precisely the strategy Israel has employed during Operation Protective Edge.

Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands also constitutes collective punishment. Israel maintains effective control over Gaza’s land, airspace, seaport, electricity, water, telecommunications and population registry. Israel deprives Gazans of food, medicine, fuel and basic services.

Prospects for Accountability

Both Israel and the U.S. have refused to ratify the Rome Statute. But if Palestine were a party to the statute, the ICC could exercise jurisdiction over crimes committed by Israelis and Americans in Palestinian territory. The ICC could also take jurisdiction if the UN Security Council refers the matter to the ICC, or if the ICC prosecutor initiates an investigation of the crime.

The U.S. would veto any Security Council referral to the ICC. And the ICC prosecutor has not initiated an investigation. So the question is whether Palestine can ratify the statute, thereby becoming a party to the ICC.

In 2009, the Palestinian National Authority filed a declaration with the ICC accepting the court’s jurisdiction. In 2012, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly recognized Palestine as a non-member observer state. During the present war, the Palestinian minister of justice and the deputy minister of justice both submitted documents to the ICC indicating that the 2009 declaration is still valid. On Aug. 5, 2014, the Palestinian minister of foreign affairs met with officials from the ICC and inquired about the procedures for Palestine to become a party to the statute.

On July 25, 2014, a French lawyer filed a complaint with the ICC on behalf of the Palestinian justice minister. Citing Israel’s military occupation of Palestinian territories, Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip and the ongoing military operations there, the complaint alleges that Israel committed war crimes and other crimes. The Palestinian government has not formally commented on this complaint.

On July 23, 2014, the UN Human Rights Council established a commission of inquiry into Israeli violations of international human rights and international humanitarian law. The resolution also called on parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention to convene and respond to the alleged violations. That convention requires parties to prosecute violators.

Countries can bring foreign nationals to justice for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity under the well-established doctrine of universal jurisdiction. Genocide charges could also be brought under the Genocide Convention, to which both Israel and the United States are parties. That convention also punishes complicity in genocide; U.S. leaders’ provision of military aid would constitute complicity.

Although the Israeli and U.S. governments continue to maintain that Israel has only acted in self-defense against Hamas’ terrorism, the weight of world opinion points in the opposite direction. There is overwhelming opposition to Israeli aggression in Gaza and calls for justice and accountability.

Both Israeli and U.S. leaders must be criminally prosecuted for committing and aiding and abetting these crimes.

Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, and a former president of the National Lawyers Guild. Her next book, Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues, will be published in September. [See Cohn’s “US Leaders Aid and Abet Israeli War Crimes, Genocide & Crimes against Humanity,” JURIST – Forum, Aug. 8, 2014.]

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Israel’s attack on Gaza is the culmination of 66 years of settler-colonialism

Israel claims its latest onslaught against the population of Gaza is a response to Hamas rocket-fire, targeted at “terrorists” and motivated to “restore quiet.” However, an analysis of the IDF’s public relations points and war doctrines as well as the historical context of the events, shows the root cause of the crisis to be Israel’s decades-long programme of violent settler colonialism.

By  Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, Ceasefire

July 20, 2014

Israeli officials have claimed that the military invasion of Gaza is a response to Hamas rocket attacks, a legitimate form of self-defence against the group’s indiscriminate firing into civilian areas. To be sure, Hamas’ rocket attacks inside Israel are wrong, and when they kill Israeli civilians, they are war crimes. But who is the real aggressor in this conflict? “Hamas started it”, a friend told me. “Israel is responding to attack.”

According to Barack Obama, “No country on earth would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders.” But which country on earth would tolerate being suffocated, starved and besieged for 66 years in an open air prison involving a brutal military occupation, blockade, and routine deaths?

Never again? The 2 million death toll

According to Dr Gideon Polya of La Trobe University, Palestinian casualties of war violence since 1948 are estimated to range between 80,000 to 100,000, compared to about 4,000 Israeli casualties of (mostly) terrorist attacks. In his academic paper for the anthology, The Plight of the Palestinians: A Long History of Destruction (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), Polya further calculates that total number of avoidable Palestinian deaths from “war, expulsion and occupation-imposed deprivation” amounts to about 1.9 million fatalities since Israel’s founding.

Just this February, the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in the Occupied Territories – Richard Falk, Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law at Princeton University – submitted his final report to the UN Human Rights Council. Presenting his findings at a news conference in March, he said that Israel’s policies in the West Bank and Gaza bore “unacceptable characteristics of colonialism, apartheid and ethnic cleansing.”

Apartheid

Professor Falk pointed out that more than 11,000 Palestinians had lost their right to live in Jerusalem since 1996 due to Israel imposing residency laws favouring Jews and revoking Palestinian residence permits. “The 11,000 is just the tip of the iceberg because many more are faced with possible challenges to their residency rights.” In the West Bank, Israeli policies of “apartheid and segregation” with de-facto annexation of territory are designed to deny the Palestinians’ right to self-determination, while efforts to “change the ethnic composition” of East Jerusalem are supported by the proliferation of illegal settlements.

Despite the IDF’s ostensible disengagement from Gaza in 2005, the coastal enclave remains “occupied” under an unlawful Israeli blockade controlling Gaza’s borders, airspace and coastal waters, which have created food and fuel shortages. This has been accompanied by “continuing excessive use of force by Israeli security forces” and unlawful killings that are “part of acts carried out in order to maintain dominance over Palestinians.”

“It seems incontestable that Israeli measures do divide the population of the Occupied Palestinian Territory along racial lines, create separate reserves for Palestinians and expropriate their land,” Falk concluded in his report. Palestinians in the West Bank are subject to military laws, while Jewish settlers face a civil law system. Israel also violates Palestinians’ rights to work and education, freedoms of movement and residence, and of expression and assembly.

Calibrating the Gaza starvation diet

A US diplomatic cable revealed by WikiLeaks in 2011 quoted Israeli officials saying they wanted to “keep Gaza’s economy on the brink of collapse.” The idea was to ensure the economy was “functioning at the lowest level possible consistent with avoiding a humanitarian crisis.”

One of the mechanisms to do this was what veteran Nazareth-based journalist Jonathan Cook called Israel’s “starvation diet” for Gaza. Israeli Defence ministry documents obtained by the Israeli human rights group Gisha showed that Israeli officials had calculated the minimum number of calories – so-called ‘red lines’ – needed by Gaza’s population to avoid malnutrition. But as Cook reports, while this figure required allowing in 170 trucks a day, in practice Israeli military officials permitted an average of just 67 trucks per day into Gaza (compared to a daily 400 before the blockade).

“The facts on the ground in Gaza demonstrate that food imports consistently fell below the red lines,” said Robert Turner, operations director of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). No wonder a 2012 UNRWA report forecasts that if Israel’s policies toward Gaza continue, the strip will be uninhabitable by 2020.

Routine murders – just another day in Israel’s open air prison

Amidst such intolerable conditions, the IDF added insult to injury by killing nine Palestinians in Gaza and 27 in the West Bank in 2013. In several incidents, soldiers had shot dead civilians for throwing stones. Despite formal military investigations into some of these incidents, the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem criticised the process as deeply flawed since “practically no one is held accountable for the killing of Palestinians,” and therefore the procedure “does not serve as a deterrent and indicates disregard for human life.”

Earlier this year, BTselem documented that five Palestinian civilians “who were not taking part in hostilities” were killed by the IDF near the Gaza perimeter fence. The group noted that “Gaza residents use the area for a variety of patently civilian needs: work-related, recreational walks and demonstrations” and criticised the IDF for “harming people who pose no threat to anyone.”

Then three Israeli boys were kidnapped in early June of this year. As an investigation by the Jewish Daily Forward found, Netanyahu’s government knew almost immediately that the boys had been killed, and who had killed them – but pretended to know neither to justify a brutal crackdown.

“It was clear from the beginning that the kidnappers weren’t acting on orders from Hamas leadership in Gaza or Damascus,” reported Forward. “Hamas’ Hebron branch – more a crime family than a clandestine organisation – had a history of acting without the leaders’ knowledge, sometimes against their interests. Yet Netanyahu repeatedly insisted Hamas was responsible for the crime and would pay for it.”

Thus ensued an 18-day ‘search-and-rescue operation,’ involving soldiers entering “thousands of homes, arresting and interrogating hundreds of individuals.” To justify the operation, Netanyahu “maintained the fiction” that they hoped to find the boys alive “as a pretext to dismantle Hamas’ West Bank operations.”

In the process, the IDF killed more than half a dozen Palestinians – while a Palestinian teenager was burned to death by settlers.

This is the context in which Hamas’ first round of rocket attacks since 2012 was unleashed, and through which we must analyse the process leading up to the IDF’s current ground invasion.

Bending the law to kill

So far, the IDF has killed more than 400 Palestinians, 80% of whom are civilians, and wounded 2,000; while two Israelis have been killed (one by ‘friendly’ fire). Israeli officials claim that they are targeting Hamas military installations. “According to the army, since the start of the entire operation, 200 ‘command and control centres’ and 43 ‘Hamas regime buildings’ have been hit,” notes British journalist Ben White. “The former is often a euphemism for someone’s family home; the latter includes government ministries.”

But over 1,300 Palestinian homes have been destroyed by Israeli bombs. By implication, assuming the claim is true in the first place, the IDF’s own figures imply that only 243 of these have been remotely connected to Hamas.

Israel’s military track record suggests worse. White highlights a Ha’aretz report from 2009 which revealed that “IDF officers were receiving legal advice that allowed for large numbers of civilian casualties and the targeting of government buildings.”

“The people who go into a house despite a warning do not have to be taken into account in terms of injury to civilians, because they are voluntary human shields,” said one senior official of the international law division (ILD) of the Israeli Military Advocate General’s Office. “From the legal point of view, I do not have to show consideration for them. In the case of people who return to their home in order to protect it, they are taking part in the fighting. If someone stands in front of a tank in order to block its progress, he is participating in warfare.”

The dean of the Faculty of Law in the College of Management, Prof Orna Ben-Naftali, argues that such distorted applications of international law have eroded “distinctions between types of conflicts or between civilians and combatants” so as to “validate the use of almost unlimited force in a manner that is totally at odds with the basic goal of humanitarian law. Instead of legal advice and international humanitarian law minimising suffering, they legitimise the use of force.”

As a consequence, “the majority of the adult men in Gaza and the majority of the buildings can be treated as legitimate targets. The law has actually been stood on its head. It has ceased to fulfill its purpose, and so we have to admit that it has gone into dissolution procedures ahead of bankruptcy.”

All of Gaza is the enemy

Multiple credible independent investigations into IDF conduct have proven it deliberately targeted civilians. In the wake of Operation Cast Lead, the Jerusalem-based Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) found that the IDF had adopted a more aggressive combat doctrine based on two principles – “zero casualties” for IDF soldiers at the cost of deploying increasingly indiscriminate firepower in densely populated areas, and the ‘Dahiye Doctrine’ promoting the targeting of civilian infrastructure to create widespread suffering amongst the population with a view to foment opposition to Israel’s opponents.

One Israeli soldier cited by PCATI said: “If we detect anything that should not be there – we shoot. We’re told the air force distributed flyers telling everyone to go to Gaza City. If beyond this line any people are detected – they are not supposed to be there.”

“In urban warfare, anyone is your enemy. No innocents. It was simply urban warfare in every way,” said another.

The basis of this approach was clarified in March 2009 when the IDF’s rules of engagement policy was outlined to the Knesset Committee for Foreign and Security Affairs:

The troops will be preceded by a ferocious pillar of fire. After the shooting, the warnings, anyone remaining in the area, in one of the most densely populated urban sites in the world is either a terrorist or knows the price to pay.

This policy was the result of what Major General Gadi Eisenkott – commanding officer of the IDF’s Northern Command – described as the IDF’s ‘Dahiye Doctrine’ in October 2008:

What happened in the Dahiye Quarter of Beirut in 2006, will happen in every village from which shots are fired on Israel. We will use disproportionate force against it and we will cause immense damage and destruction. From our point of view these are not civilian villages but military bases. This is not a recommendation, this is the plan, and it has already been authorised.

Elaborating on Eisenkott’s comments, a paper by IDF Colonel Gabriel Siboni for the Institute for National Security Studies – a Tel Aviv think-tank headed by ex IDF military intelligence chief General  Amos Yadlin which reflects Israeli military thinking – advocates that the IDF must respond to hostilities

with force that is disproportionate to the enemy’s actions and the threat it poses… Such a response aims at inflicting damage and meting out punishment to an extent that will demand a long and expensive reconstruction processes. The strike must be carried out as quickly as possible, and must prioritise damaging assets over seeking out each and every launcher. Punishment must be aimed at decision makers and the power elite… and should target economic interests and the centers of civilian power that support the organisation… This approach is applicable to the Gaza Strip as well.

In 2009, then deputy prime minister Eli Ishai explained further the rationale: “We have to determine a price tag for every rocket fired into Israel. If for every small attack we will strike at the infrastructure or houses – the firing will stop.”

Blind Eyes

The impact of IDF doctrines and rules of engagement in Gaza and the West Bank have been extensively documented in the over 950 testimonies of former IDF soldiers “who represent all strata of Israeli society and cover nearly all units that operate in the Territories.”

“Cases of abuse towards Palestinians, looting, and destruction of property have been the norm for years, but are still explained as extreme and unique cases. Our testimonies portray a different, and much grimmer picture in which deterioration of moral standards finds expression in the character of orders and the rules of engagement, and are justified in the name of Israel’s security,” reads the website of Breaking the Silence, the Israeli NGO founded in 2004 by a group of soldiers who served in Hebron. “While this reality is known to Israeli soldiers and commanders, Israeli society continues to turn a blind eye, and to deny that what is done in its name.”

IDF spokespeople attempt to legitimise the wanton destruction of civilian life in Gaza by blaming Hamas for using human shields. But these claims remain largely unsubstantiated. In its 2009 investigation, Amnesty International “did not find evidence that Hamas or other Palestinian groups violated the laws of war to the extent repeatedly alleged by Israel. In particular, it found no evidence that Hamas or other fighters directed the movement of civilians to shield military objectives from attacks.”

On the contrary, Amnesty found that the IDF itself was using Palestinians as human shields: “Amnesty International did find that Israeli forces on several occasions during Operation ‘Cast Lead’ forced Palestinian civilians to serve as ‘human shields.’” (pp. 48, 75)

As Israel accelerates its ground invasion of Gaza, IDF forces slaughtering largely anything in their path, it is clear that their goal is not simply deterrence of Hamas, but the comprehensive punishment of Palestinians through the indiscriminate destruction of civilians and civilian infrastructure – a continuation of 66 years of occupation and colonisation.

* The Dahiya doctrine is a military strategy put forth by the Israeli general Gadi Eizenkot that pertains to asymmetric warfare in an urban setting, in which the army deliberately targets civilian infrastructure, as a means of inducing suffering for the civilian population, thereby establishing deterrence. The doctrine is named after a southern suburb in Beirut with large apartment buildings which were flattened by the IDF during the 2006 Lebanon War.Israel has been accused of implementing the strategy during the Gaza War.