Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a report this week on “Indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks during the conflict in Gaza” during the first three months of the Israeli campaign against Gaza.
The UN is painfully polite, so you may not be able to tell that the terms “indiscriminate” and “disproportionate” are war crimes, of which it is accusing the Israeli government.
The report notes, “According to the Israeli Air Force (IAF), between 7 October 2023 and 19 February 2024 over 29,000 targets in Gaza were attacked.”
Again, although OHCHR is agreeably quoting this official Israeli source, it is not paying a compliment to the air force for its thoroughness:
“The rate at which Palestinians were killed in Gaza during this reporting period was reportedly higher than in any recent conflicts globally.”
Again, not a compliment.
In fact, you have to think of this litany of facts and figures as sort of like the opening statement of a prosecuting attorney, establishing the grounds for a conviction.
They are building up to it: “The war has also witnessed many tragic instances of entire families killed together, from infants to grandparents, many while in their homes (128,904 housing units have been damaged between 7 October 2023 and 1 April 2024) or in other places they had sought safety. According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, as of 3 May 2024, more than 3,129 families have been killed or injured together.” The OHCHR subjected reports of Israeli attacks and their aftermath to very sophisticated CSI-style forensics.
They found, “87 per cent of the verified fatalities have occurred in incidents that resulted in 5 or more fatalities, and over 60 per cent were killed in incidents that resulted in 10 or more fatalities.”
What they discovered is that the Israeli attacks weren’t targeted at, say, a single Hamas militant. The Israeli military went big. Six in ten of their strikes produced 10 or dozens of fatalities. That outcome is weird if you were only trying to kill 37,000 militiamen in a population of 2.2 million people. You’re only targeting 1.6 percent of the population, none of which are women or minors. But “the majority of those killed are children and women.”
So what is the significance of entire families being killed or wounded and over a hundred thousand domiciles being damaged?
Here’s what the High Commissioner’s office is getting at: “These statistics suggest that Israel’s choices of methods and means of conducting hostilities in Gaza since 7 October, including the use of explosive weapons with wide area effects in densely populated areas, have failed to ensure that they effectively distinguish between civilians and combatants. The widespread, large-scale and continuing toll of civilian deaths, notably the high proportion of women and children amongst them, and accompanying destruction of civilian infrastructure in Gaza since 7 October, raise serious concerns about the Israeli Defense Forces’ (IDF) compliance with IHL, including as to patterns of systematic violation of the principles of necessity, distinction, proportionality, and precautions in attack.”
Violating these four principles is in each case a war crime. Remember that the International Court of Justice is deciding whether Israel is guilty of genocide, and the International Criminal Court has asked for warrants against Israel’s prime minister and its minister of defense on grounds that they may have committed war crimes.
The report gives examples of each of the violations it has identified. Last October 9, the Israeli air force appears to have dropped without warning a 2,000-pound BLU-109/MK 84 bomb on the densely populated Jabaliya Refugee settlement, pulverizing two multi-story buildings and damaging many others, and killing at least 60 people, wounding dozens more. A 2000-pound bomb can have a blast radius of a quarter mile. The point is that this was not a precision strike on a handful of guerrillas. It took out two apartment buildings full of families.
The same day, more 2000-pound bombs were dropped on Gaza city: “An area of 5,700 square metres [61,354 square feet] was essentially flattened, with at least seven structures, including Taj3 Tower, completely destroyed and three other structures showing signs of significant damage.”
61,000 square feet is the size of a town shopping center.
In fact, the US Pentagon, which has very good satellite photography, has seen 500 craters consistent with use of 2000-pound bombs. The US military is clearly appalled, since these weapons should not be used on densely populated urban areas, and were not deployed by the US against ISIL in Mosul, for instance. Several Biden administration officials, civilian and military, who have seen these atrocities unfold and recognize them for what they are have resigned in protest.
That is why President Biden paused a shipment of 2000-pound bombs to Israel– he didn’t want them used on Rafah, which had swollen with refugees. Netanyahu, however, just vigorously protested that halt, saying he needs the bombs. What does he plan to do with them? Knock down that last three apartment buildings in Gaza?
The report gives other examples of the Israelis flattening entire residential blocks. It concludes that the Israeli army in Gaza has not distinguished between military targets and civilians, and that it has launched indiscriminate attacks on urban infrastructure with no specific military target in sight.
Israeli commanders violated the principle of proportionality, which holds that “an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.” That is, you can’t take out a whole city block and kill hundreds of people to get at three terrorists. But that procedure has been the Israeli war on Gaza in a nutshell.
Using 2000-pound bombs on dense neighborhoods also violates the principle of precaution, which requires military commanders to give some thought beforehand to what would happen to unarmed civilians if they chose a highly destructive 2000-pound bomb to accomplish their mission rather than something more appropriate to targeting a small guerrilla band.
Moreover, there is no evidence that the Israeli military issued any warnings to the civilians it planned to wipe out. These attacks were not like the US Fallujah campaign in Iraq in fall of 2004, where most of the city was allowed to leave before the assault.
So if the Israeli government has committed war crimes, it has to investigate them and punish those responsible. Otherwise, the High Commissioner warns ominously, “Member States must support accountability measures at the international level, including through the International Criminal Court.”
Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant had better enjoy Israel in the summer, because their future ability to travel will be circumscribed when they are convicted of war crimes by the ICC.
Middle East Eye Video:
“Israel dropped hundreds of 2,000-pound bombs on Gaza”
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