One of the consequences of the present Israeli war on Gaza has been the blatant erosion of respect for and belief in international legal principles and institutions. Israel’s disrespect for international law and institutions, its escape from any accountability or repercussions for its actions, and the support of United States for this impunity have been phenomenal. To be sure, the world is likely to live with the consequences of Israel’s actions for years to come.
Israel has created an elaborate set of justifications and rationales for actions and policies that undermine international law principles and render them inoperable. After all, international law develops as a combination of the practice of states and the consensus, or near consensus, on principles that are regarded as normative and binding. Even when these principles are violated, the violations are noted as such. The international community generally condemns and regrets them and calls, not always successfully, for stronger enforcement and compliance—but never accepts the violations as justified, legal, or permissible.
One area where Israel’s degradation of international law is most evident is in its systematic erosion of the distinction between civilian and military targets, and between combatants and noncombatants, during military operations. This is known as the principle of distinction, which is considered the cornerstone of International Humanitarian Law.
As a reminder, much of international law was codified and clarified after the two World Wars, when the community of nations—horrified at the carnage and destruction and fearful of the proliferation of increasingly lethal weapons—decided to create structures of institutions and enact conventions and agreements that would regulate and decrease the possibility of such horrors in the future. The creation of international tribunals, the United Nations Charter, the International Criminal Court, the Geneva Conventions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and many other agreements, conventions, and institutions were established and flourished. Despite occasional setbacks and breaches, they generally held firm and even expanded the notion of a world order governed by law and not just by brute force and military might.
In its Gaza war, and later in its Lebanon fighting, Israel has systematically violated—and justified its violation of—the principle of distinction. It may be instructive to trace how this was done, as Israel is using the same process to render the principle inoperable.
The Human Shield Argument
Israel began with the utter demonization of Hamas (and later Hezbollah). It established that Hamas is a terrorist organization whose complete destruction is a legitimate, indeed a worthy, goal. Both Israel and the United States had long ago designated Hamas (and also Hezbollah) a terrorist organization, yet Hamas also operated as a political party, which in 2006 (the last time Palestinian national elections were held) won a plurality of the votes in the Palestinian Territories. It was also carrying out a wide range of governmental functions, from collecting trash and taxes, maintaining roads, policing, and running courts and municipal and other governmental functions. Hezbollah is also a political party in Lebanon that has deputies in parliament and an extensive array of charitable societies, and largely represents an integral part of the fabric of Lebanese society.
By declaring all of Hamas a legitimate military target, Israel embarked on the slippery slope of eliminating the principle of distinction.
By declaring all of Hamas a legitimate military target, without distinguishing between its military and civilian functions, Israel embarked on the slippery slope of eliminating the principle of distinction. In order for Israel to label a target in Gaza as legitimate for destruction, it was sufficient to state, sometimes without proof, that a particular person, building, or institution was ‘Hamas-related.’ Under this reasoning, Israel declared as legitimate targets, and attacked and bombed, municipal buildings, government offices, hospitals, and public institutions including rescue and civil defense offices. Israel attempted to bolster its position by stating that the entire population of Gaza was responsible for the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, because Gazans had voted for the organization. This is a disingenuous argument because the last Palestinian election was held more than 17 years ago, and most of the population of Gaza today was too young to ever participate in any polls. Besides, Hamas only received a plurality, not a majority, of the popular vote.
Israel expanded this argument with the contention that the population of Gaza “should have rebelled and overturned the rule of Hamas.” As a result of these arguments, President Isaac Herzog stated, “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible.” Other politicians echoed this statement. The entire population is considered guilty, and therefore as legitimate targets.
This argument was followed by Israel’s claim that Hamas—and later Hezbollah—was deliberately placing its military structures and weapons inside and under civilian population centers, including hospitals and schools, and thus denying them their protected status under international humanitarian law and making them legitimate targets. Israel claimed that civilian losses resulting from such attacks were not only unavoidable, but also the fault of Hamas for purportedly endangering them. Israel made elaborate assertions, unsupported by facts, that it had intelligence that “command and control” centers were located below Gaza hospitals. Al Shifa Hospital was the first one where such claims were made, and computer-generated plans were published purporting to illustrate the elaborate command-and-control center. After Israel attacked and captured the hospital, no such tunnels or command and control centers were found. Still, Israel continued to make such allegations, and after a while, all hospitals became routine targets for Israeli strikes.
Israel also continues to make the human shield argument, even without proof. Meanwhile, growing evidence, including testimonies of Israeli soldiers and video evidence, show Israeli forces actually using Palestinian captives as human shields to protect themselves from hostile gunfire. Palestinian prisoners have even been dressed in military uniforms as they are led into buildings or tunnels to draw away Palestinian fire that would otherwise be aimed at Israeli soldiers.
Wholesale Bombardment
The next step in the slippery slope is the permission that Israel gives itself to attack and kill all those in the vicinity of a “legitimate target” and to consider such civilians as “collateral damage.” This principle was even incorporated into Israel’s artificial intelligence program, sadistically called “Where’s Daddy,” in which a targeted Hamas operative, even a low-ranking one or a noncombatant, will be attacked only after he arrives home, ensuring that his family and neighbors will be killed with him. A further loosening of regulations allowed the destruction of entire buildings not necessarily to kill a specific fighter, but to serve as general deterrence to the population.
Allowing the destruction of entire neighborhoods and communities in the process of targeting a particular Hamas or Hezbollah person or institution was elevated by Israel to broad application using the so-called Dahiya doctrine. Israel first adopted the doctrine during its 2006 war on Lebanon, when it declared entire sections of the southern district of Beirut where many Hezbollah offices and institutions were located to be an open, free-fire zone, and destroyed the area through massive aerial bombardment. It used the same doctrine in Gaza and again in Lebanon in the current hostilities. The doctrine was “strengthened” by official declarations ordering everyone in the vicinity to evacuate, as if such arbitrary orders exonerated Israel from its obligation to distinguish between civilian and military targets.
Such orders or “warnings” became part of Israel’s arsenal as it attempted ethnic cleansing of large swaths of Gaza, south Lebanon, and even of sections of the Beqaa Valley in the northeast of Lebanon, far from the Israeli border. Apologists for Israel laud this tactic as a humanitarian attempt to reduce civilian casualties by giving advance warning of Israel’s intent to bomb certain areas. But many of the victims see these frightening “orders to evacuate” as part of a policy to punish the local population and to deprive them of their residences, businesses, and community structures by using threats and violence against a totally civilian population. It is also an assertion of power and control as Israel directs citizens of another country to leave their homes and vacate their environs to serve its purposes.
This new approach was evident as Israel escalated the fight in Lebanon through the beeper explosions, in which thousands of beepers and other wireless devices bought by Hezbollah exploded simultaneously. The fascination of some Western observers with the attacks completely missed the fact that these beepers targeted not only militants but also other presumed friends and family members, and that their explosions also hurt other civilians in their vicinity. Israel followed these attacks by targeting and killing Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. The bunker-busting bombs leveled several multistory buildings in Beirut and led to the death and injury of hundreds of civilians.
Not only did Israel hit civilian targets, but also warned Lebanese first responders not to try and save the victims.
This was followed by warnings and then actual attacks on Lebanese banks and financial institutions that Israel claimed were related to the charities and economic structures of Hezbollah. Again, Israel declared these institutions targets and proceeded to bomb them from the air without even pretending that they were military targets. Israel also declared, without proof, that Hezbollah was hiding money and gold underneath a hospital in Lebanon. Again, even if that were true—and it was disproved by visiting journalists who inspected the hospital—Israel was restating and reinforcing the lack of distinction between civilian and military targets as a new norm. Not only did Israel hit civilian targets, but also specifically warned Lebanese civil defense and ambulance workers not to try and save the victims, or they would be bombed themselves. In fact, several instances were recorded in which first responders were targeted and killed.
The relative silence of the international community regarding these events led to the normalization of these tactics and their use in other areas as well. Almost daily, there are attacks on schools, hospitals, and civilian institutions in Gaza and in Lebanon. Furthermore, the policy of ordering the evacuation of civilians from their homes, neighborhoods, and communities has become so prevalent that Israel is now using it in areas in Lebanon far away from the border and the fighting. The goal is to punish populations, like the Shia in the Beqaa Valley who are considered friendly to Hezbollah.
Displacement of Civilians
Finally comes the “General’s Plan” for the forcible evacuation and deliberate starvation of the northern third of the Gaza Strip. Retired Major General Giora Eiland proposed this plan to declare all civilians in the north of Gaza who refuse to evacuate as ordered by the Israeli army as military targets, and to cut off all water, food, medical supplies, fuel, and institutions in the Northern Gaza as a prelude to making it a buffer zone—and possibly to resettle it with Jewish settlements. Although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denies that this is now official policy, the Israeli military has been acting accordingly. The hospitals have been forcibly evacuated, water and food have been stopped since early October 2024, and daily intensive bombardment is reported.
Those who remained behind, largely because they have nowhere safe to go, are facing starvation and disease. Israel has denied humanitarian organizations entry, and even the US government was forced to issue a rare warning that if Israel did not remedy the situation in 30 days, the United States would consider withholding military aid. (The deadline has now come and gone, and the Biden administration has found itself backpedaling on the threat.)
The high visibility of Israel’s attacks on civilians—and the utter failure of international institutions to respond to them—is threatening the foundations of international law and institutions. The actions of the Biden administration, as well as the attitudes of the media, are creating a situation in which such behavior is normalized and viewed as acceptable. The loser is not only the civilian population of Palestine and Lebanon, but the very structure of international law itself, including, crucially. the basic distinction between combatants and noncombatants in times of war.
The views expressed in this publication are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the position of Arab Center Washington DC, its staff, or its Board of Directors.
Featured image credit: Anas Mohammed
