I was perplexed when I heard the news reports of the surprise attack and the massacre perpetrated against children and women against Israel. I could not believe what I was hearing.
The cruel and inhuman way in which Hamas began the attack, killing and beheading infant children, murdering and raping women in a surprising way to the innocent civilian population within their homes showed the excessive evil of its actions. Something diabolical. These were not military targets.
And in a rapid reaction of defense and retribution, Israel declared war and began bombing the Gaza Strip where more than half of the more than 2 million Palestinians live, with hundreds of victims, following the Jewish biblical dogma of ‘ an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’.
And while there is no doubt that Palestinians have suffered isolation and loss of freedom within what has been their ancestral land, Palestine, in the course of building the Jewish state, it is not possible to accept the cruelty committed against children and innocent people, by Hamas, according to the Israeli government.
A few days after Israel’s war against Hamas was officially declared, the world is already counting on holding accountable those who commit war crimes, acts considered outside the perimeters that govern wars in the world. And it seems to be from both sides.
And it’s already said. Both sides in the war are possibly committing war crimes.
A United Nations Commission of Inquiry said it has been “collecting and preserving evidence of war crimes committed by all sides” since the violence began last week. That evidence could be added to an International Criminal Court investigation into possible war crimes committed by Israel and Hamas in past conflicts, the Associated Press reported on Friday, October 13.
When the target of attacks is the civilian population without military motive, then the perpetrator falls under the jurisdiction of international law.
“Intentionally attacking civilians and civilian objects without a necessary military reason to do so is a war crime, period,” said David Crane, an American international law expert and founding chief prosecutor of the United Nations Special Court for Sierra Leone. “And that is a standard that both sides must meet under international law.”
Hamas militants shot dead entire families, including women and young children, in border communities around the Gaza Strip, according to Israel. Israel’s health service said it removed the bodies of more than a hundred community members from Kibbutz Be’eri. Militants attacked the Tribe of Nova music festival and shot dead people desperately seeking shelter. However, this is being denied by Hamas.
As I write this editorial, Israel is preparing for a total ground invasion of the Gaza Strip to pursue and destroy all members of Hamas, and has called on more than one million Palestinians residing in the conflict area to mobilize. south, in an attempt to avoid unnecessary slaughter.
However, Hamas has asked the population to stay in their homes, which Israel interprets as an action to use the population as hostages or shields. But Palestinians accuse Israel of allowing this event in order to wipe out Palestinians and take over the whole land of Palestine.
The Israeli military has pulverized large areas of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip with airstrikes and blocked supplies of food, water, fuel and electricity ahead of a possible ground invasion. The bombing has already killed about 1,800 people in Gaza, including UN workers, paramedics and journalists. The event threatens the war to spread outside of Palestine.
Experts say the blockade, which affects the territory’s more than 2 million inhabitants, violates international law. “Collective punishment is a war crime. Israel is doing it by cutting off electricity, water, food and blocking aid from entering the Gaza Strip,” Shakir said.
In 1947 neither Palestine nor Israel existed, but the Jews gained independence from the British and formed Israel. The idea of a Palestinian nation did not come to light until 1964, with the creation of the PLO.
Those who were born in that land were Palestinians, whether they were Jews or Arabs. Before independence, which brought back the word Israel, Jews called themselves Palestinians. And they talked about “returning to Palestine.”
Destruction and war will not give positive results, but rather, as one expert said: “prevent this crisis from leading to a prolonged confrontation through dialogue and putting the integrity of civil society first.” Let the war stop now and begin a negotiation. This war benefits neither side.
Furthermore, hate due to racism is evil.
