Is it not time to pronounce Israel a rogue state [since] it has violated all international norms and laws throughout its genocidal war on Gaza?
For example, according to international humanitarian law, states and non-state groups engaged in an armed conflict are required to protect civilians, medical staff and humanitarian aid workers and ensure unrestricted passage of humanitarian aid. Israel has heeded none of these rules. We know that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians killed since October 7 have been civilians. This includes more than 14,000 children. Already back in January, Oxfam International
reported that the daily death rate in Gaza was higher than all other major conflicts in the 21st century.
Israel’s tactics on the battlefield have been indefensible. Israeli forces have been insistent in their
targeting of medical facilities in Gaza. Throughout the campaign, Israel has conducted more than 900 strikes on healthcare facilities, killing at least 700 medical professionals. Currently, only 10 out of 36 hospitals are partly functional in the Gaza Strip. Israeli authorities have claimed that hospitals in Gaza were being used as military bases by Hamas. This was the official justification for Israel’s two-week siege of al-Shifa Hospital, the enclave’s largest and most advanced medical facility. When Israeli forces eventually withdrew from the complex, witnesses described dystopian scenes of “human heads eaten by crows, unidentified and decomposing body parts, and hundreds of corpses piled up and buried in mass graves”.
Israeli forces have similarly targeted aid workers. There was global outrage and condemnation in early April after seven workers from the food relief organisation
World Central Kitchen were killed in a “targeted Israeli strike”. But that attack was simply one of many. Gaza has been the most dangerous place for humanitarian workers for more than six months, and close to 200 workers have been killed thus far. Israel has also restricted aid flows into Gaza – this despite warnings from aid agencies that famine is imminent. In violation of Article 79 of the additional protocols of the Geneva Conventions that require that journalists be protected as civilians in a war zone, it has systematically attacked journalists and media personnel in Gaza, including their family members. In fact, 75 percent of all
journalist killings in 2023 were in Gaza as a consequence of Israel’s military campaign. Israeli forces have also reduced all Palestinian universities in Gaza to rubble.
Numbers do not lie either. That Israel is largely isolated was self-evident in the voting tally for the United Nations General Assembly resolution calling for a ceasefire back in December. While 153 countries voted for the resolution, only 10, including Israel and the US, voted against it. In the last UNSC vote on March 25, 2024, 14 out of 15 members voted in favour of the resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire. Notably, the US chose to abstain rather than do what it usually does – veto any resolution that seeks to restrain Israeli actions against Palestinians.
Israel is able to persist with its rogue conduct and obstinate circumvention of international laws, regulations, and norms because it has strong, all-season allies like the US in the West. But labelling Israel as a rogue actor and treating it as such, is an essential condition for any punitive actions the international community can take against a country that has violated the rights of Palestinians for 75 years with utmost impunity.
With countries like Canada, the Netherlands, Japan, Spain, and Belgium suspending arms sales to Israel, it would seem that its rogue nature is gaining some recognition. Eventually, one would hope that supporting Israel would become too much of a liability, even for the US, and this would make way for Palestinian liberation.
Somdeep Sen@Al Jazeera