Civilians in Rafah: Their situation is almost hopeless.
Photo: EPA
It goes without saying that the Israeli military would have the power to immediately stop the shelling of the Gaza Strip. That is: to immediately ensure that fewer people die. You're hearing it everywhere, apparently, recently from EU foreign policy chief Joseph Borrell and more recently from the Dutch court, the country's appeals court in The Hague. It also banned the export of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel. Because there is a fear that Israel will commit war crimes: indiscriminate attacks on civilians who have nowhere to flee.
The appeal of international law to Israel has long been clear. With more than a million refugees huddled together in the small town of Rafah in the south of Gaza, whose neighborhoods have already been completely or partially destroyed, Israel is forced to create an escape route before it strikes there as well.
Those rules, those in power in Israel know it, and that's what they did at the beginning of the war in northern Gaza. The International Court of Justice in The Hague recently restated this for them in black and white: If civilians find themselves in the line of fire, you must give them a chance to get out. Israel has so far offered them no such real opportunity.
What can Hamas do?
But Hamas would also have the power to immediately ensure that more people don't die. You don't hear that often these days. It is rarely spoken about internationally, not even in the West – perhaps because Hamas is not perceived as receptive to such appeals.
The situation here is also clear: Hamas can immediately declare that it is giving up its weapons and sees no chance of winning this war. Its fighters could become prisoners of war like a regular army under the supervision of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Will the Israeli military, which has always insisted it only targets these militants, stop its bombing? Maybe yes.
Or, second: Hamas should have long complied with a fundamental appeal of international law, which is no less legally urgent and compelling than the appeal that leaves Israel options to evict civilians in Rafah. Hamas must withdraw from Rafah immediately.
Four battalions of Hamas – according to Israeli information – in Rafah, surrounded by children, elderly and refugees: they are acting against all international laws, thus creating hell on earth in this last place of refuge. Hamas fighters must separate themselves from civilians, sleep in camps and make it clear that they are fighters. So only they get the fire – not the refugees.
In international law we speak of the need to distinguish; The principle is very important: all warring parties are obliged to keep their distance from civilians so as not to drag them into the inferno. The dire consequences of ignoring this can be seen in Gaza.
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– They don't seem to care about people
Israel and Hamas have their hands full to avoid civilian deaths in Rafah. But they ignore international law and its provisions for armies.
Ronen Steinke