March 19, Volker TurkThe United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights official statement Israel’s policy regarding aid to Gaza may constitute a war crime.
“The extent to which Israel continues to restrict aid access to Gaza, and the manner in which it continues hostilities, may amount to the use of starvation as a means of warfare, which is a war crime,” he wrote.
His comments caused an uproar. The use of starvation of civilians as a weapon is a serious violation of international humanitarian law and constitutes a war crime. Rome StatuteInternational Criminal Court (ICC) Treaty
Israeli and foreign officials told New York Times last week They fear the International Criminal Court is preparing to issue arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials, including possibly charging them with blocking aid to civilians in Gaza. (They also said they believed courts were considering issuing arrest warrants for Hamas leaders, which could be issued at the same time.)
Let me be clear: There is a high evidentiary threshold for war crimes prosecutions, and we have no way of knowing at this stage what a full investigation will reveal, especially since independent observers have limited access to Gaza.
We do know there’s a humanitarian crisis going on in the enclave The ghost of famine It has been getting closer in recent weeks. Months of Israeli restrictions have prevented adequate aid from being delivered to Gaza, and getting aid to the northern Gaza Strip, which is under Israeli military control and where the hunger crisis is at its worst, has proven more difficult.
The dynamic of the conflict has also been curbed aid distribution: Massive displacement of civilians, a lack of police protection for aid convoys, and the violence itself have prevented some aid from reaching those who need it most.Aid workers have killed While trying to do their job. All of this leads to what Teal’k describes as a “catastrophe”: widespread malnutrition and deaths of children and other vulnerable people from hunger and hunger-related diseases.
When I contacted the Israeli military for comment this week, it said in a statement that since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, Israel has been “engaged in a war against the terrorist group” and with the United States. Coordination, Egyptian and international aid organizations provide aid to Gaza residents. A spokesman added: “Israel is continuously making significant efforts to find additional solutions to facilitate the flow of aid to the Gaza Strip, especially the north.” He said this was in addition to aid packages being dropped by air and delivered by sea. It is evident in the coordination.
Israel has previously strongly denied imposing restrictions on aid, accusing the United Nations of failing to adequately distribute aid and accusing Hamas of looting supplies. U.S. and U.N. officials said there was no evidence of this beyond a shipment by Hamas. seized earlier this week and is currently recovering. Arrivals to Israel have increased slightly in recent weeks as it eased some restrictions under pressure from the United States and other allies. aid delivery.
It’s unclear whether the ICC is actually close to issuing an arrest warrant, or whether it will be made public – warrants can be issued secretly and kept under seal. If a warrant is issued, it is possible that it may not be for starvation, but for other crimes. Under ICC rules, an arrest warrant requires “reasonable grounds to believe” that a suspect has committed a relevant crime. I will look at how this standard applies to the war crime of starving civilians and why it matters.
What is the threshold for criminal liability?
Although intentional starvation of civilians has been considered a violation of international humanitarian law since at least the 1970s, it was not recognized as a war crime until the establishment of the International Criminal Court in 1998. Nor has any international tribunal ever tried anyone on charges of causing starvation of civilians with weapons of war.
According to the Statute of the International Criminal Court, this crime has two main elements. The first is the conduct itself: actions or policies that deprive civilians of “things necessary for survival,” including interfering with relief supplies. The second is intention: starvation must be deliberately used “as a method of warfare.”
Some legal experts point to statements made by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant two days after a brutal Hamas-led attack on Israel that killed more than 1,200 people as evidence of Israel’s intentions.
‘We are conducting a total siege’ Gallant saysadded, “There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, everything is shut down. We are fighting against the human animal and we will act accordingly.”
In the days that followed, other officials, including the energy minister and the head of the Israeli agency that oversees policy in the occupied territories, also pledged that Gaza would be completely cut off from outside supplies. Aid trucks were not allowed to enter Gaza until October 21, nearly two weeks after Gallant’s statement. Since the strip already relies heavily on receiving basic supplies from Israel, this has a direct impact on civilians.
Legal expert Tom Dannenbaum, a professor at Tufts University’s Fletcher School, said the publicly declared “total siege” provided a reasonable basis for believing that elements of a war crime were met even before actual starvation occurred. Siege and starvation.
“I don’t think there is any other way to understand the declaration of a general siege, and the specific identification of food and water as central components of the list of items to be deprived, as any other way than to refuse to provide those items. Their survival value,” he said.
Israel explain Its officials’ statements about the siege do not truly reflect its policies, pointing to an Oct. 29 cabinet meeting in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “we must prevent a humanitarian catastrophe,” and directed that aid to the Gaza Strip should be increased along with other cabinet decision What it said was an indication of its efforts to provide assistance to the territory.
Get assistance
Israel is imposing strict checks on aid trucks lining up at border crossings to bring food and other humanitarian supplies into Gaza, trying to block items that could be used by Hamas. Aid agencies say these inspections are often slow and can result in entire trucks being damagedDual use” items, e.g. medical scissors and water filterIsrael says it may have both military and civilian purposes.
After October 21, Israel began allowing some aid into Gaza, but its restrictions still prevented the delivery and distribution of enough aid to avert a humanitarian crisis there, according to the United Nations and aid groups.
Josep Borrell Fontelles, the EU’s top diplomat tell the U.N. Security Council On March 12, Gaza’s “natural means of support through roads are being closed, artificially closed” and “hunger is being used as a weapon of war.”
Israeli government spokesman Tal Heinrich is called Borrell’s statement was “false and outrageous” and said there were “no limits on the amount of food and water” allowed to be delivered to the Gaza Strip.
exist A letter dated March 15 British Foreign Secretary David Cameron has told a British parliamentary committee his “tremendous frustration” that British aid to Gaza is “often being put on hold”. “The main deterrents remain the Israeli government’s arbitrary denials and lengthy customs clearance procedures, including multiple security checks and narrow opening windows during the day,” he wrote.
Cameron said that before October 7, about 500 trucks entered Gaza every day, carrying aid and commercial items.This number dropped by approx. 75% In the early months of the conflict, the latest weekly average data available was only 202 trucks per day, although there was a slight increase in April. According to the United Nations
As of April 17, At least 28 children According to local health authorities, children under the age of 12 have died in Gaza hospitals due to malnutrition or related causes, including 12 infants less than one month old. Officials believe there are many more deaths outside hospitals that have not been recorded.
Under international law, Israel has the right to inspect aid convoys for weapons and other items that may aid Hamas, and to set the time and route for humanitarian access. But rights are not unlimited, experts say: context matters.
“If there was no possibility of civilians starving, one could take such action for military reasons rather than for subsistence,” said Dannenbaum, a professor at Tufts University. But once civilians are at risk of starvation, one party to the conflict ” There must be no abuse of inspection powers, setting of times and routes to arbitrarily hinder the delivery of humanitarian aid to hungry civilians,” he added.
Yuval Shani, a professor of international law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said such restrictions have the potential to meet the intent requirement of criminal law. “When you hold back aid and the inevitable consequence of doing that is starvation, then you’re in a realm where knowledge and intention actually collapse into each other.”
What might happen next?
Aid flows have improved in recent weeks, and on Wednesday Israel reopened the Erez crossing, allowing some aid to flow directly into northern Gaza, where the humanitarian crisis is worst. But foreign officials and aid agencies say that’s not enough. “This is real and important progress, but more needs to be done,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said. told reporters this week After visiting an aid warehouse in Jordan.
Dannenbaum said that, legally speaking, improvements now do not eliminate possible criminal liability for past conduct.
Furthermore, having probable cause for a warrant is not the same as having sufficient evidence for a conviction.
“These investigations are often extremely fact-dense and require long and painstaking investigations by the prosecutor’s office,” said Chimène I. Keitner, a law professor at the University of California, Davis and a former international law adviser at the U.S. Department of State.
At this stage, it seems unlikely that any Israeli official will actually face trial at the ICC, even if an arrest warrant is issued. The court does not have a police force to directly make arrests, relying instead on governments to arrest suspects within their territories. Therefore, it is quite safe for individuals to avoid ICC-friendly jurisdictions.
However, if the ICC publishes indictments, the international community will increasingly believe that Israel’s actions in Gaza violate international law. Ketner said this could lead to growing political pressure on Israel’s allies to limit their support for Israel.
