TPC Staff
Palestine Chronicle / December 13, 2024
“I think one of the striking features of the last 14 months is how Israel has used counterterrorism rhetoric to justify exceptional, extreme violence against Palestinians accompanied by a chronic dehumanization of the Palestinian people.”
UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counterterrorism, Professor Ben Saul, has said that Israel “has enjoyed impunity for many decades which has emboldened it to become increasingly lawless.”
“And this last campaign in Gaza is unprecedented in the history of warfare in recent years,” he warned, at a joint UN press conference of independent human rights experts in Geneva on Wednesday.
Saul said it is “not just that there have been extreme violations which have been well documented.”
“We all, over the past 14 months, have seen deliberate attacks on civilians, indiscriminate attacks, disproportionate attacks, starvation, denial of humanitarian relief, suppression of NGOs and UNRWA as terrorists, a complete lack of credible accountability through the Israeli military and civilian justice system,” he stated, adding “That’s all pretty obvious and on the record.”
‘Counterterrorism rhetoric’
Saul explained that his “job” was to “encourage governments to respect human rights while countering terrorism.
“And I think one of the striking features of the last 14 months is how Israel has used counterterrorism rhetoric to justify exceptional, extreme violence against Palestinians accompanied by a chronic dehumanization of the Palestinian people.”
He explained that what he found “more shocking” was that “I’ve been working on humanitarian law for 25 years, I‘ve cooperated technically with the Israeli Defence Forces on many occasions in the past, and I know they have excellent lawyers, very, very good international humanitarian lawyers.”
‘Bring pressure to bear’
“So when they unleash a campaign of violence like this, they know what they’re doing,” he stressed.
Part of the situation, Saul added, “which I don’t think has been explored quite so much, is just how Israel has enabled this violence by taking very extreme exceptional interpretations of international humanitarian law to impose a kind of cloak of legality on what they’re doing.
“So they’ve expanded the definition of what is a military objective. They’ve expanded the category of people they call fighters who can be attacked.”
Saul said Israel imposes “very large numbers on the civilian casualty counts that they tolerate in targeting.”
“You need the states that matter to bring the pressure to bear on Israel,” he emphasized.
The special rapporteur noted that “Germany & the United States supply 99% of the weapons exported to Israel. They could stop this conflict overnight if they stopped the weapons that kill the Palestinians.”
‘End double standards’
Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, who also spoke at the press conference, said the “crisis in Gaza crisis in Gaza has become a global crisis that concerns all of us.
“How did we get here? Impunity,” she emphasized.
Margaret Satterthwaite, special rapporteur on the independence of judges said “member states should cooperate fully with the ICC in line with Article 86 of the Rome Statute.”
“Let me be very clear. Threats against the ICC promote a culture of impunity,” she continued. “We are concerned that countries that consider themselves champions of the rule of law taking actions to intimidate an independent court and to thwart accountability.”
“It is time to end the double standards,” Satterthwaite stressed. “International justice exists or it does not. We can’t abide justice for people from some States & the protection of the law for some people with impunity for people from other States.”
The ICC issued arrest warrants last month for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of “crimes against humanity and war crimes,” compelling the ICC’s 124 member states to arrest them should they enter their territory.
Gallant visited the US last week despite the arrest warrants.
‘Stop sending arms’
The UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order, George Katrougalos, said: “There are priorities for the States: stop sending arms to Israel; impose sanctions for the expansion of the settlements; stop any thought about annexation in the West Bank or Gaza.”
“We have moral responsibilities and we must assume them,” he added.
Ongoing genocide
Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza.
Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 44,875 Palestinians have, to date, been killed, and 106,454 wounded.
Moreover, at least 11,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire’.
Women and children
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli war has resulted in an acute famine, mostly in northern Gaza, resulting in the death of many Palestinians, mostly children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
Later in the war, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians began moving from the south to central Gaza in a constant search for safety.
