VICTIMS: Many children are already innocent victims of the war. A girl at the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City is taken to the morgue after the attacks on 9 October. Photo: Ashraf Amra/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
– We are fighting animals, said Israel’s defense minister and announced a total blockade of Gaza. More than half of those who are now denied food, water and electricity are children.
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Israel announces a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, including electricity, food, water and fuel. Almost half of Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants are children, and will be harmed by the blockade. Law professor Terje Einarsen says that a total blockade could be a war crime and could develop committed to crimes of aggression or genocide. Show more
Israel has announced a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, which means that supplies and equipment will not be allowed in to those who live there. It comes after Hamas’s bloody attack on civilians in Israel, which began on Saturday.
– We are introducing a complete blockade of Gaza. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting animals, and must act accordingly, said Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant at one press conference Monday.
What will this mean for the civilian population of Gaza?
Almost half of the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million inhabitants are children. They are the ones this will affect, says NRC Secretary General Jan Egeland.
– It is understandable that Israel is upset by the worst act of terrorism in its history. We all support an effort against terrorism. But this is the worst imaginable tool against future terror, when they collectively punish 2.3 million civilians, one million of whom are children, says Egeland to VG.
THE WOUND: A boy who was wounded in an Israeli attack on a house, sits in an ambulance in Khan Younis in the southern part of the Gaza Strip on Wednesday 11 October. Photo: IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA / Reuters
Several hundred children killed
The worst has already happened to many mothers and fathers in Gaza. On Tuesday afternoon, the UN says that several hundred children has been killed in the last 72 hours.
The girl with the red shorts, in the photo at the top of the article, is said to be one of the victims of the attacks on Gaza City on Monday, according to the photo agency Getty Images.
Israeli attacks have hit apartment blocks and schools and thus hit civilians in the Gaza Strip, says UN human rights chief Volker Türk.
When a total blockade is introduced, this will further damage a war-affected civilian population, Egeland believes.
DESPERATE: Ambulance personnel rush a little girl for treatment after Israeli attacks on Gaza City on 9 October. Photo: Belal Khaled/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
A total siege and blockade means that no one gets any supplies of anything across the borders, he reminds.
– Then it is quite clear that the men who have been behind the decision on organized terror, and carried it out, will not starve. They never do, because they have their stocks. It is the widow with five children, who may now also have lost her home when hundreds of blocks of flats have been hit, who will suffer, says Egeland.
A blockade will severely damage aid work in the area, says the secretary-general.
– If this is carried out over time, it will mean that injured children do not get help in hospital, because they are left without electricity and supplies. Then the children will die, and then Israel will be responsible for war crimes. So you undermine your own efforts against terrorism with such collective punishment, Egeland believes.
Law professor: Could be a war crime
The UN and WHO are warning about the situation for civilians in the Gaza Strip, and are asking for a humanitarian corridor to be established to the Gaza Strip. At least 13 health facilities have already been hit by Israeli airstrikes.
Over 187,000 have been displaced from their homes since the war between Hamas and Israel broke out.
On Tuesday evening, Israel’s defense minister hinted at a ground invasion of Gaza, when he visited Israeli soldiers at the border with Gaza.
Law professor at the University of Bergen (UiB), Terje Einarsen, says that in the specific case of an attack by Hamas, Israel has the right to defend itself. But in the same way that Hamas must not attack civilians, it will be punishable if Israel allows its actions to affect civilians in Gaza.
– The right of self-defense is not unlimited. You can’t do anything under the plea of self-defense. If ordinary people start to die as a result of the actions, or, for example, do not receive the necessary operations in the hospital, it can no longer just be called self-defence, but new crimes, says Einarsen, who has a doctorate in international law.
SHATTERED: The devastation is enormous in Gaza City’s al-Rimal neighborhood. Photo: MOHAMMED ABED / AFP
Einarsen says that although the core of the conflict itself is very complicated and divisive, it is not quite so complicated to make an international law assessment of the various actions.
Purely under international law, a blockade is an act of aggression, this is stated in the Rome Statute of the ICC, the law professor explains to VG. A total blockade means an escalation of the actions, which can develop into crimes of aggression, he says.
– In addition, this could be a war crime, and it could also develop into genocide. But all this will depend on the impact of the intense blockade, and how long it will last, explains the international law expert.
According to the professor, the fact that as many as almost half of the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip are children is significant in at least two ways:
– Children will typically be more vulnerable than adults to being exposed to serious physical and psychological injuries, and if children in large numbers are forced to leave Gaza and Palestine, it is illegal deportation and an independent act of genocide, says Einarsen to VG.
The conflict is complicated and can be difficult to understand. Get a little wiser here: Questions and answers: The conflict in Israel and Palestine.
Photo: MOHAMMED ABED / AFP
Requests negotiation assistance
Egeland in the Norwegian Refugee Council encourages those who have influence on the parties to put pressure on them to put an end to the use of violence. The US, Egypt and the Arab Gulf countries are the states that must start negotiations, which can take the parties out of the spiral of conflict, bitterness and revenge, he says.
Through many years of work in the region, he has gained some experience of what does not works: More violence.
– We have seen what enormous consequences it has when you try to bomb out violent extremist men who are in and among the civilian population. We have seen before that families who have lost their loved ones to violence only become more bitter and vengeful. The response to terrible terror must not breed more bitterness and terror, he says.
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Published: 11.10.23 at 09:53
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2023-10-11 07:53:07
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