Don’t Blame Hamas for the Gaza Bloodshed


May 23, 2018
JFJFP
Israel has a right to defend its borders, but shooting unarmed protesters who haven’t breached its frontier is disproportionate and illegal.

Palestinian protestors during clashes with Israeli security forces on the Gaza Israeli border east of Khan Yunis

Sari Bashi writes in Foreign Policy, “Since demonstrations began on March 30, Israeli soldiers have shot and killed more than 100 Palestinian protesters inside the Gaza Strip, near the border fence separating Gaza from Israeli territory. Israel’s government is responding to international criticism of the killings in Gaza with a line of argument it has used since the 2007 takeover of Gaza by Hamas. ‘We regret the harm to Palestinians in Gaza, Israel is saying, but it’s unavoidable, because Hamas controls everything in Gaza.’ That’s the response Israel used until 2010 to defend punitive restrictions on the transport of goods, included some foods, into Gaza. That’s the response Israel uses to explain why it still blocks travel and prevents most of Gaza’s outgoing goods from leaving for external markets, two of the many restrictions that have driven unemployment in Gaza to 49 percent. And that’s the response that Israel has given, with official U.S. backing, to rebuff condemnation of its killing of more than 100 Palestinians and the maiming and wounding of thousands more, in seven weeks of demonstrations inside Gaza, near the Israeli border.” 

“On Friday, the United Nations Human Rights Council voted 29-2 to create an independent investigation into the shooting, a resolution that Israel rejected as reflecting what it calls an anti-Israel bias of the council. The Israeli government has already laid out its defense in a domestic court challenge brought by Israeli human rights groups. The government argued in a court briefing that “this is not a popular or spontaneous protest. These violent disturbances were organized, coordinated and directed by Hamas, a terrorist organization engaged in armed conflict with Israel.” A spokesman for the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, Raj Shah, was quick to echo that argument last week: “The responsibility for these tragic deaths rests squarely with Hamas,” he said.”

“Yet under the international standards for policing demonstrations, even the use of rocks or firebombs does not justify lethal force, absent an imminent threat to life. It doesn’t matter whom the protesters support or who, if anyone, encouraged them to demonstrate. Lethal force can only be used when strictly necessary to protect against an imminent threat to life.”

“The Israeli government acknowledges the international law enforcement standard but says its forces will fire live rounds even before a threat to life becomes imminent, because it believes that Hamas will exploit the presence of thousands of demonstrators to breach the border fences. That essentially empties the word “imminent” of any meaning. It ignores the nonlethal means, such as tear gas, skunk water, and rubber-coated steel pellets, that Israel can and should exhaust to protect its border. Even if those methods were to fail (and they haven’t been exhausted), Israel would be justified in using lethal force only if a border breach presents an imminent threat to life. Israeli troops and snipers currently fire from well-fortified positions inside Israel, behind two fences, and, in key locations, behind ditches dug to prevent border crossings. They receive footage from drones hovering over Gaza and have backup from additional personnel and equipment located farther inside Israel. Since the protests began, Israel has reported only a single injury among its troops.” (more…)

Sari Bashi is the Israel and Palestine advocacy director at Human Rights Watch.

 

 

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