Declaration on the Grave Humanitarian Crisis in the Gaza Strip
- law professors forum
- 16 באוג׳
- זמן קריאה 4 דקות
At the outset, the Israeli Law Professors’ Forum for Democracy reiterates the moral and legal obligation incumbent upon the Government of Israel to act urgently to secure the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas, whose condition – according to credible reports – continues to deteriorate sharply. Israel’s obligation obviously does not detract from Hamas’ responsibility for the ongoing holding of the hostages, which constitutes a severe war crime.
Concurrently, in recent weeks a series of reports have been published by Israeli and international organizations, reflecting – on their face – a professional and thorough examination of the humanitarian situation in Gaza. These reports indicate an increasing risk of severe famine spreading among the civilian population throughout the Gaza Strip, and a breakdown of essential civilian life-support systems, including medical and sanitation infrastructure. Such reports further point to decisions and actions by the State of Israel as having caused or contributed to the humanitarian disaster in Gaza. Nevertheless, Israeli coalition members and security officials repeatedly claim that “there is no famine in Gaza”, and in this vein, cabinet minister A. Eliyahu went further to assert that “we do not need to concern ourselves with that.”
Against this background, the Israeli Law Professors’ Forum for Democracy reiterates and underscores that under Israeli law the State of Israel is obligated to take effective measures to minimize the harm caused to the civilian population in Gaza, including in times of armed conflict, and certainly to ensure that they are not left to starve.
As we have noted in the past, under customary international law and pursuant to rulings of the Israeli Supreme Court (sitting as the High Court of Justice), the Government of Israel must allow and facilitate the passage of humanitarian aid to the civilian population in the combat zone, subject to security inspections. To the extent that exceptions to the obligation to allow and facilitate humanitarian aid exist, they cannot justify a blanket prohibition on assistance and are subject to the requirement of proportionality to be assessed in light of the severity of harm to civilians.
Moreover, impeding aid for the purpose of exerting pressure on a population in the course of diplomatic negotiations is strictly prohibited. The opposite is the case: the denial of access to food as a means of coercion may amount to the use of starvation as a method of warfare, which is itself a war crime. Accordingly, the illegality of the decision to entirely halt the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip is becoming increasingly pronounced with the passage of time.
It should be emphasized that these latter obligations are not contingent upon reciprocity and apply to the State of Israel by virtue of its status as a sovereign state committed to the rule of law, irrespective of the grave and ongoing violations perpetrated by terrorist organizations.
Furthermore, the State of Israel is obliged not only to comply with applicable provisions of international law and the rulings of the High Court of Justice, but also not to implicate Israel Defense Forces soldiers in unlawful acts, thereby exposing them to the risk of criminal prosecution before international or foreign tribunals.
One must not stand idly by in the face of the mounting testimonies and allegations of an acute humanitarian crisis unfolding in the Gaza Strip, nor remain silent in the face of shameful Israeli public officials’ calls for deportation and indiscriminate harm to a civilian population.
We must re-anchor ourselves in first principles: the State of Israel bears a legal and moral duty to prevent conditions of hunger and disease in the Gaza Strip – most of which is currently under Israeli control – and to minimize, insofar as possible, harm to civilians there.
To meet this obligation, the following steps must be taken without delay:
Israel must allow and facilitate the entry of food, medicine, and humanitarian supplies into the Gaza Strip, and ensure their distribution as effectively as possible. Moreover, the friction between large civilian crowds and IDF soldiers at food-allocation points has resulted in an intolerably high number of civilian casualties among those seeking aid – an issue demanding urgent remedy.
Concurrently, Israel must promptly assess the severity of conditions among the civilian population under its control or direct influence, in order to reach operational conclusions as quickly as possible regarding the measures required to mitigate the humanitarian disaster, even in the midst of war. Such an assessment must be conducted through an independent, thorough, and objective investigation, undertaken urgently in light of the immediacy of the crisis. Its findings must be made public.
The Forum calls upon the Government of Israel to heed the words of the late Yitzhak Navon, Israel’s fifth President, in response to the 1982 massacre in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon:
We are neither permitted to turn a blind eye to ourselves, to our own self-image, and to that part of the world with which we identify, nor should we. Our duty is to ascertain, promptly and with precision, through reliable and independent individuals, all that transpired in this unfortunate affair; and, if necessary, to draw from such an inquiry the full conclusions it demands.
In addition, to maximize access to information about events on the ground, the State of Israel must lift its ban on the entry of journalists – including foreign journalists – into the Gaza Strip to report on developments there on an ongoing basis.
The Forum calls on the legal advisors to the IDF and to the Israeli Government to make clear to decision-makers, in the strongest terms, that the humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip demands urgent and immediate action: facilitating the entry and distribution of food and essential supplies to Gaza; ascertaining the full facts on the ground; and preventing the further deterioration of living conditions for the civilian population in Gaza – and, by extension, for the Israeli hostages, tortured in Hamas captivity.
Read the full decleration:
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