The current conflict in the Middle East is the most violent in decades. An Inside Geneva special asks what the rules of law allow, and what they forbid.
Marco Sassòli, Professor of International Law at the University of Geneva, says: “the massacre Hamas committed among those festival visitors are clear violations of international humanitarian law. [...] The entire northern Gaza Strip is not a military objective. So, an attack is a specific act of violence against one target, and the entire northern Gaza Strip is not possibly a target.”
What are the challenges for aid workers?
“We need to ensure safety of civilians and safety of health workers, humanitarian workers on the ground. Our colleagues from the Palestine Red Crescent were telling us, yes we have no food, yes we have no water, yes we have none of these. But we don’t even know if we’ll be alive tomorrow,” says Benoit Carpentier from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
Can anything prevent a humanitarian disaster in Gaza?
“We’ve heard about 20 or 30 trucks only being allowed in, which obviously for a population of 2 million people is a drop in the ocean,” says Carpentier.
Do we expect too much of humanitarian law?
“We shouldn’t misunderstand humanitarian law, for instance humanitarian law does not prohibit Hamas to attack Israel, and does not prohibit Israel to attack Hamas fighters, military objectives and so on in the Gaza Strip, and other cities. And humanitarian law was never meant as saying wars are wonderful. No, wars are terrible, but they are much less terrible if the parties make an effort to comply with humanitarian law,” concludes Sassòli.
Join host Imogen Foulkes on the Inside Geneva podcast.
Please listen and subscribe to our science podcast -- the Swiss Connection.
Get in touch!
Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter.
The current conflict in the Middle East is the most violent in decades. An Inside Geneva special asks what the rules of law allow, and what they forbid.
Marco Sassòli, Professor of International Law at the University of Geneva, says: “the massacre Hamas committed among those festival visitors are clear violations of international humanitarian law. [...] The entire northern Gaza Strip is not a military objective. So, an attack is a specific act of violence against one target, and the entire northern Gaza Strip is not possibly a target.”
What are the challenges for aid workers?
“We need to ensure safety of civilians and safety of health workers, humanitarian workers on the ground. Our colleagues from the Palestine Red Crescent were telling us, yes we have no food, yes we have no water, yes we have none of these. But we don’t even know if we’ll be alive tomorrow,” says Benoit Carpentier from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
Can anything prevent a humanitarian disaster in Gaza?
“We’ve heard about 20 or 30 trucks only being allowed in, which obviously for a population of 2 million people is a drop in the ocean,” says Carpentier.
Do we expect too much of humanitarian law?
“We shouldn’t misunderstand humanitarian law, for instance humanitarian law does not prohibit Hamas to attack Israel, and does not prohibit Israel to attack Hamas fighters, military objectives and so on in the Gaza Strip, and other cities. And humanitarian law was never meant as saying wars are wonderful. No, wars are terrible, but they are much less terrible if the parties make an effort to comply with humanitarian law,” concludes Sassòli.
Join host Imogen Foulkes on the Inside Geneva podcast.
Please listen and subscribe to our science podcast -- the Swiss Connection.
Get in touch!
Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter.
This is Inside Geneva. I'm your host, imogenfolks, and this is a Swiss info production.
Speaker 2:In today's program, Hamas militants record themselves infiltrating a community in Israel close to the Gaza border.
Speaker 3:Home to nearly two and a half million people. The Gaza Strip has been under an air, land and sea blockade imposed by Israel since 2007.
Speaker 4:On the first weekend, we lost three paramedics from the Maghen Deh-bil-Ad-Dom in Israel. These are our colleagues. Three or four days later, we lost another four people from the Palestinian Red Crescent.
Speaker 5:So we can only reiterate the call for the stop of violence, because for us, a life is a life To Hamas for the immediate and unconditional release of the hostages To Israel, to immediately allow unrestricted access of humanitarian aid to respond to the most basic needs of the people of Gaza, the overwhelming majority of whom are women and children.
Speaker 6:An attack is a specific act of violence against one target and the entire Gaza Strip is not possibly a target.
Speaker 1:Hello and welcome again to this special edition of Inside Geneva. As I promised you last week, we're going to talk about events in Israel and Gaza. The Israel-Palestine conflict has erupted into the worst violence seen in decades and, as ever in war, civilians on both sides are bearing the brunt. Here in Geneva, the humanitarian agencies have been making ever more desperate pleas for de-escalation and for access to millions of civilians trapped inside Gaza and since we're home here to the Geneva Conventions and International Humanitarian Law, legal experts have been looking long and hard at exactly how this conflict is being conducted. So, on Inside Geneva, we're going to talk to two experts, one legal and one humanitarian, about the challenges of this particular conflict, about what's allowed and what's prohibited, and whether humanitarian agencies will be able to bring any genuine sustainable relief.
Speaker 4:Israeli troops are still hunting down armed Palestinians.
Speaker 7:An astonishing new image that turns this decades-old conflict around Palestinians atop a captured tank in Gaza.
Speaker 1:First, let's remember that the horrific attacks by Hamas not only caused worldwide shock. They took the world by surprise too. So when I talked to Marcos Asoli, professor of international law at Geneva University, and Benoit Carpentier of the International Red Cross, I began by asking them what their own reactions were when they heard the news, the massacre Hamas has committed among those festival visitors, or also the deliberate attacks on Israeli towns clear violations of international humanity.
Speaker 6:My first thought was that I hope that Israel will not fall into the trap of Hamas of doing similar things, all the committing violations, and thereby somehow making peace in the Near East even less possible.
Speaker 4:Our reaction is to be horrified. We are humanitarians, we are here to help people and when we see this happening, it's terrible for us. On the first weekend, we lost three power medics from the Magan Deril Adam in Israel. These are our colleagues and they were trying to help people. Three or four days later, we lost another four people from the Palestinian Red Cross. So we can only reiterate the call for the stop of violence, because for us, a life is a life and we need to support people and to do it the best we can.
Speaker 3:No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel for Gaza, says Israeli Defense Minister Yuf Galant.
Speaker 8:And in this besieged coastal enclave, water is running out fast.
Speaker 7:As you can see, people are waiting, but there's no flour, no water, no oil.
Speaker 1:But as this new round of violence unfolded, it became clear that supporting civilians in the best way possible had become a huge challenge. Hamas had taken more than a hundred hostages. In response, Israel sealed off Gaza completely and cut electricity. So I wanted to know from our legal expert, Professor Sasoli, what the laws of war say about this kind of conflict. Marcus Sasoli, my first question. Some people are a little bit unclear whether the laws of war apply to a group like Hamas and whether, when Israel seeks to respond, they need to apply the rules of war in responding to a non-state actor like Hamas.
Speaker 6:The question whether this is an international or a non-international armed conflict is a very complicated one, but, as you know, international humanitarian law also applies to non-international armed conflict, and it is clear that Hamas is sufficiently organized and unfortunately, the level of violence now is sufficiently high that it is not just a terrorist attack but an armed conflict, and international humanitarian law applies to armed conflict, whoever is right and whoever is wrong.
Speaker 1:Let's look at the response then. I mean, we all know that Gaza has had this blockade for well over a decade, but part of the response to these terrible, terrible attacks on Israel was to cut off water and electricity and food.
Speaker 6:I had the impression from the very beginning that this was political statements for domestic consumption by Israeli leaders. But in reality Israel will never be able to let simply all the people die, or most of the people die, because I mean without electricity. The hospitals have for some days petrol for generators, but if no petrol is let in then the hospitals become morgues. And I'm not a specialist, but I think the Gaza Strip needs import of food, otherwise these two million people simply do not have enough.
Speaker 2:Israel has vowed to demolish Hamas after their terror attacks that Israeli authorities say involved the indiscriminate mass killing of civilians, including children and the ill.
Speaker 8:Outside the main hospital in Rafer. The morgue is full.
Speaker 1:So international law applies to Hamas and all evidence points to violations, and international law applies to Israel's response, however brutal the attack it suffered. Within days, food, fuel, even water, were running out in Gaza and UN aid agencies, unable to get access, began to sound frustrated, even desperate.
Speaker 9:People are in a desperate situation. They do desperate things. We know they drink unsafe water. That we know from experience, tragically will come with all kinds of health issues. Particularly is our concern, of course, for those who are already most vulnerable, people who may already be sick or weakened or injured, and so on and so forth. If you take away from them their basis for survival, they are likely to die first, including children and infants.
Speaker 10:What is clear is that a large number of civilians were brutally killed by Hamas militants who entered Israel. Credible investigations and individual criminal responsibility needs to be established. This is essential because we cannot have collective punishment of an entire population on the basis of attacks carried out by militants.
Speaker 8:Israel says Hamas is responsible for the suffering of Gaza's civilians. This is the end of the world.
Speaker 1:But there are still aid workers inside Gaza. There's the UN Relief and Works Agency. Its schools in Gaza are currently sheltering tens of thousands of people who hope they won't be targeted there. And there's the Palestinian Red Crescent, partnered, like Israel's Magan David Adam, with the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Federation here in Geneva. The aid workers in Gaza have stayed, despite Israel telling northern Gaza's entire population to move south. The Federation's Benoit Carpentier says that for aid workers in Gaza, each day is a challenge just to stay alive.
Speaker 4:The daily life is a mix of trying to go wherever there is need with the ambulance, for instance for those who are dealing with the ambulance services, so they are being called almost all the time. While they are doing that, they also have to try to ensure their own safety, which is not granted at all at the moment. Those who are working in the hospitals are receiving patients more and more because there's more and more injured people and they have less and less means to actually support them. The medicines are not running completely short. We are not even sure that our hospitals in Gaza, the two hospitals of the Palestinian Red Crescent, have still fuel to run, to have electricity, and in addition, they also have to deal with the massive influx of people that are actually seeking refuge in the hospital. They are on an emergency mode, basically 24-7. Bombing doesn't stop. There's no stopping the attacks, night and day.
Speaker 1:There was this call for people in northern Gaza to move south. As you say, it's a very dangerous situation, asking that many people to move is not a good idea, then it won't keep them safer, because this is what's being said in some quarters. They'll be safer if they go south.
Speaker 4:No, I mean first, logistically. Moving two million people from one point to the other in the time frame that was originally being requested is technically not possible For many reasons. You're in the middle of a conflict zone, so that is very complicated. You could be in the middle of the crossfire anywhere where you move. You've seen on pictures many, many children, you have elderly, you have wounded people. How do we move all these people from point A to point B? And to be able to do that you need a safe area where you know that if you move from here to there you're going to be safe, and that's not the case at all at the moment.
Speaker 1:There are also I suppose there are people in hospitals who can't actually be moved with this.
Speaker 4:Absolutely. That's why our colleagues from the Palestine Red Crescent have refused to leave the hospitals in which they are operating, because they don't want to leave their patients behind, because people that are in ICUs, people that have been injured, or even people that were just there before all this started, they just cannot move. There's no means to transport all these people from where they are to any other location.
Speaker 8:The desperate flight of people from Gaza as Israel continues its bombing campaign over the north of the territory.
Speaker 10:Fleeing for their lives. Those living in the north of the Gaza Strip heading south. 1.1 million people were told by Israel they had 24 hours to leave their homes.
Speaker 1:Israel's order to the people of northern Gaza to move south was couched as advice and as a warning. We need to target Hamas, and you're in the way. Move and you'll be safe. I wanted to know from Marcos Asoli what international law says about such evacuation warnings.
Speaker 6:Indeed, warnings are prescribed unless circumstances do not permit, but in relation to an individual attack against a military objective, and the entire northern Gaza Strip is not a military objective. So the idea of this warning is if, say, the Israelis know that one building is a command and control center, they want the people who live around this building by saying in 10 minutes we attack this center. So an attack is a specific act of violence against one target and the entire northern Gaza Strip is not possibly a target.
Speaker 5:The United States has Israel's back. We have the back of the Israeli people. We have their back today. We'll have it tomorrow.
Speaker 10:We will have it every day.
Speaker 4:I've just spoken with Prime Minister Netanyahu to assure him of the UK's steadfast support as Israel defends itself against these appalling attacks. We will do everything that we can to help.
Speaker 8:Israel must have that, does have that right to defend herself. A siege is appropriate, cutting off power, cutting off water. I think that Israel does have that right. It is an ongoing situation.
Speaker 1:You talked about some of the statements you've heard from political leaders, government leaders, being more designed for political consumption. Do you see any double standards here about what's a violation of international law, what's a possible war crime?
Speaker 6:Yes, there is a double standard and this undermines the credibility of the law. I think rightly so. Russia is criticized, for instance, for using weapons with a wide area effect in densely populated areas. I was positively astonished at Western states where so much criticizing Russia for that, but now they cannot say yes. But when Israel is doing it, it is a different thing, especially because the fact that Russia is the aggressor and Israel is defending itself does absolutely not matter for humanitarian law, because both sides, however just or unjust the causes, have to comply with the same rules. And, by the way, amar's would also say that they have a just cause because they are exercising the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people. But this is not a reason not to comply with the IHL, which they did not.
Speaker 1:Do you think we need more leadership then on what international humanitarian law is?
Speaker 6:I'm thinking of several not one, not two, but three or four Western leaders asked straight out whether denial of food and fuel and water was a was a violation, and they couldn't say you know, in my view, they know that this is a violation, but they have the impression that they may or I hope this is their tactics that they say, if we recognize the right to self-defense of Israel and then confidentially tell them look, don't do this and don't do that, this has more effect than if they were publicly criticizing it. You know, it's always that your allies, you would rather put pressure on them bilaterally than publicly. I mean, the same thing is true with Western states and some of the violations, for instance concerning prisoners of war in Ukraine, they don't criticize that publicly, but I trust that they speak bilaterally.
Speaker 7:The UN Secretary General, antonio Guterres, has visited the Rafa border crossing between Egypt and Gaza. He called for it to be opened so that aid can reach Palestinians.
Speaker 5:We have two million people that is suffering enormously, that has no water, no food, no medicine.
Speaker 7:The United Nations says more than two million people are at risk of dehydration and waterborne diseases.
Speaker 1:And indeed we've seen political leaders shuttling over to the Middle East Blinken. Biden Sunak and the UN Secretary General, antonio Guterres, went to Rafa, the border between Egypt and Israel, to plead for aid supplies to be let in. Humanitarian agencies insist any aid operation has to be safe and sustained. The promise of a few trucks here or there won't cut it. The priorities, says Benoit Carpentier, are stark and fundamental.
Speaker 4:Safety. We need to ensure safety of civilians and safety of health workers, humanitarian workers on the ground. Our colleagues from the Palestine Red Crescent the other day were telling us yes, we have no food, yes, we have no water, yes, we have no, all of these, but we don't even know if we will be alive tomorrow. So the priority is safety and then, obviously, all the essential goods, items that people would need to survive.
Speaker 1:Have you got supplies waiting to get in?
Speaker 4:Yes, I mean not just us. There are many agencies that have been sending supplies at the border and was hearing yesterday I think there's 10 kilometres of trucks outside of Rafa that are ready to get in.
Speaker 1:How hopeful are you about that? I mean, this programme will go out on Tuesday. Are you hopeful that there will be any movement between now and then?
Speaker 4:I'm always hopeful. We have to be hopeful because that's the only thing that keeps us going. If we lose hope, then there's no point in continuing doing what we're doing. So, yes, we have hope. Now. What we're hearing so far is would be a good step forward in the right direction. We've been calling for Eumatain aid to access Gaza, now we have still a clear idea about how that will happen. What are the conditions around all this? We've heard about 20 or 30 trucks only being allowed, which obviously, for a population of two million people, is a drop in the ocean. It can't be just a one-off opening. It will have to be a pipeline of Eumatain aid to be able to support people, and it needs to also be reaching all the people in Gaza and not just at the border or in the south of Gaza. It has to go up north where people are still.
Speaker 2:Tens of thousands of people have fled northern Gaza and many still remain, after the Israeli military gave them 24 hours to leave the area before it launches a major ground offensive.
Speaker 8:In Gaza. Water, fuel and medicines are running out, says the UN, and there's not enough food. Some won't move to the south of the territory, fearing Israeli airstrikes.
Speaker 1:Not only are many civilians still in northern Gaza, some, after trying to get to the south amid regular bombing raids, have decided to return north. If we're going to die, one family said we may as well die in our own beds. So I asked Marco Sassoli is there an obligation under international law to let aid in or, if people are desperate to escape, to let them out?
Speaker 6:I would say let aid in, because let people out, this can end up with ethnic cleansing. And I mean, if you, in the current situation, with the Israeli warning and so on, people are in a coercive environment and would not choose freely to go out, and indeed article 49 of the Virginia Convention foresees that such a displacement could occur to protect the civilian population, but only within the occupied territory. So the idea is that humanitarian assistance must be let in, but Israel has the right to control that. It is indeed only humanitarian assistance, and I have heard now some statements saying that we need guarantees that this will not benefit to Hamas as such. Humanitarian assistance must benefit only to the civilian population, but no one can guarantee, especially in a situation like the Gaza Strip, that a wife or a mother will not also give food to the son or the husband who is a fighter of Hamas. So one can require best efforts, but no one can give guarantees on this.
Speaker 7:At the Rafa border crossing, a rare celebratory moment, as the gates opened for the first time since the start of the war.
Speaker 2:Critically needed humanitarian aid has started rolling into Gaza 20 trucks loaded with medicine, medical equipment and food that have been waiting at the Rafa crossing in Egypt for days.
Speaker 1:So as I'm recording this podcast, a trickle of aid has arrived in Gaza 20 trucks for more than 2 million people. The number of civilians killed is getting close to 5,000. Just a few miles away, in Israel, at least 1,300 have died. Just two US hostages have been released, but most families still wait desperately for news of loved ones. I had one last question for Marco Sassoli. You don't think violations are becoming more common then? I mean, I sometimes wonder, in all my long years reporting from Geneva, that a lot of the international law that we theoretically live by was brought in in the late 1940s in response to the horrors of the Second World War. Do you think that perhaps people are beginning to forget why we thought we really needed that kind of law?
Speaker 6:Well, I'm not convinced that the situation was better previously. Think about the bombardments in Vietnam compared with the bombardments of Baghdad in 2003. They have become much more accurate and there is more discrimination. So I'm not one of these things that things become worse and worse, although I must say that in the last two years, there is an up-third of armed conflicts, including armed conflicts of the traditional kind between major powers, which indeed give the impression, at least if you are not on the ground that the parties do not even care about humanitarian law. I say this, for instance, about Russia, which doesn't even try, as the Israelis do, to justify under humanitarian law what they do.
Speaker 1:Is it impossible, then, really to uphold international humanitarian law or the Geneva conventions in a situation like this?
Speaker 6:Well, I think we shouldn't misunderstand humanitarian law. For instance, humanitarian law does not prohibit Hamas to attack Israel and does not prohibit Israel to attack Hamas fighters, military objectives and so on, in the Gaza Strip and our cities, such a densely populated place. This will, even if IHL is perfectly respected, have as a consequence many civilians who will suffer, and humanitarian law was never meant as saying then was wonderful. No, wars are terrible, but they are much less terrible if the parties make an effort to comply with humanitarian law.
Speaker 1:On that note, and let's hope those warring parties are listening we come to the end of this edition of Inside Geneva. My thanks to Marcos Asoli and Benoit Carpentier for their time and their thoughts. A reminder that next week, on Inside Geneva, we'll be continuing with our series of interviews with UN Human Rights Commissioners and we'll be talking to Michelle Bachelet.
Speaker 5:I didn't want to be the historian of human rights. I wanted to have results. I wanted to improve people's lives, because the historian is an interesting job, but not for me, not. That's not what I wanted to do. Human rights will be really. They had to be in the village, in the streets, at the school, etc. It's not an abstract concept.
Speaker 1:Do join us then. In the meantime, you can catch up on previous editions of Inside Geneva, looking at the situation of women in Afghanistan or human rights defenders in Russia, to debate about artificial intelligence or institutional racism in humanitarian agencies. You can find us wherever you get your podcasts. A reminder you've been listening to Inside Geneva from Swiss Info, the international public media company of Switzerland, available in many languages as well as English. Check out our other content at wwwswissinfoch. I'm Imogen Folks. Thanks for listening and do join us next time on Inside Geneva.