Israel war on Gaza has gone beyond ‘right to self-defence’ to ‘responsibility to protect’

While ‘responsibility to protect’ strictly applies to regimes carrying out genocide against its own population, it's time to ask if it can't be applied in Gaza too, where Israel is bombing and forcibly evacuating people.

Men holding raised weapons are led out by Israeli soldiers in the northern Gaza Strip (Photo Credit: Reuters)

When Hamas launched a surprise terror attack and killed over 1,200 Israeli citizens, including children, women and elderly on 7 October, the world was outraged. The fact that the Hamas operatives took away around 240 hostages back into Gaza further added to the anger. As Israel regrouped quickly from the shock and launched a fierce counterattack, the world stood in solidarity with Israel in its right to self-defence. Even when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant vowed to eliminate Hamas from the face of the earth and flatten Gaza to the ground, the world seemed to nod and support it. Israel tried to build a narrative that this war is based on its right to self-defence, about the right of existence of Jewish people and the state of Israel.

However, as the war has progressed, Israeli strikes into Gaza have become more destructive and indiscriminate, and have failed to adhere to the principle of proportionality, especially with regard to destruction of civilian infrastructure and mass killing of innocent Palestinians in Gaza.

The war has been on for more than 80 days and has killed over 20,000 Palestinians, including over 8,000 children, but there are no signs yet of Israel letting down on intensity of its strikes or taking any measures to keep the strikes restricted to military targets. The Israeli stance of continuing blockade in Gaza is severely restricting entry of critical medical supplies and humanitarian aid. Repeated resolutions by the United Nations and other international forums have failed to persuade or force Israel to exercise restraint.

The failure of the UN Security Council to include ‘ceasefire’ in its resolution passed on 22 December also reflects on the complete breakdown of international order. An early ceasefire is the urgent need, coupled with massive and internationally collaborated humanitarian assistance before the lights are knocked out of the remaining population in Gaza. Ongoing negotiations in Egypt for a ceasefire and return of hostages offer a glimmer of hope that this humanitarian disaster could end soon, hopefully as early as the rise of the Sun in the New Year of 2024.

But until that happens, can Israel continue to claim its operations as acts of ‘self-defence’ or should the principle of ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P) be now applied to stop the ‘genocide’ happening in Gaza?

Time to answer

According to the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, R2P “seeks to ensure that the international community never again fails to halt the mass atrocity crimes of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity”. Rwanda and former Yugoslavia during the 1990s are cited as reasons behind the need to form this principle, with the UN adopting it unanimously in 2005. So far, more than 80 UNSC resolutions have invoked R2P, the last being in Libya in 2011.

Although R2P strictly applies to situations where regimes are carrying out genocide against their own population, the question needs to be asked if this principle should now be applied in Gaza, where Israel is bombing civilian infrastructures and forcibly evacuating people out of their homes, effectively depopulating the Gaza strip. Does Israel’s reasoning that the Hamas commanders and operatives are hiding among the civilian population give it a licence to target hospitals, schools, UN facilities, etc. without any concern for the lives of innocent Palestinians and simply regard them as ‘collateral damage’? Is killing hundreds of civilians ‘self-defence’ or is it ‘war crime’?

Israel’s current war in Gaza is now being described as among the deadliest and most destructive in recent history. In just over two months, Israel has killed more than double the number of people killed in almost two years of Russia-Ukraine war. Such has been the intensity of strikes by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) that the Hamas terror attack of 7 October seems a distant memory as news and TV are only covered with destruction and death of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza.

Calls for ceasefire are growing louder by the day. Protests are being held across the globe in support of Palestinians trapped in Gaza with nowhere to go as Israel has been bombing areas that it earlier designated as ‘safe’ and ordered civilians to move. A number of countries like Jordan, Bahrain, Bolivia, Columbia, Chile, Turkey, Brazil, Honduras, etc have recalled their ambassadors from Israel. As per Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), at least 97 journalists have already been killed in this war in Gaza, while 136 UN personnel too have lost their lives in Gaza.

Review ‘strategy’

The US is majorly complicit as it continues to supply military aid and arms to Israel. Both have to thus quickly review the end state of this war. There are no signs yet of Hamas being eliminated. On the other hand, continuing reports of Israeli troops in Gaza being ambushed is leading to increasing Israeli military casualties. With no signs of over 140 hostages still with Hamas being released, anger at home too is growing. The killing of three Israeli hostages in Gaza by the Israeli army itself on 15 December has caused outrage in Israel, with people demanding Netanyahu’s resignation or dismissal.

Former PM of Israel Ehud Olmert wrote in an article: “Israel now faces the choice between a cease-fire as part of a deal that may bring home the hostages in the hope that most of them are alive, and a cease-fire with no deal, no hostages, no apparent achievement.” French President Emmanuel Macron was quoted as saying that fighting terrorism did not mean “flattening Gaza” and called for “a truce leading to a humanitarian ceasefire.”

It is thus very clear that Israel needs to review its military strategy. It has to realise that the war in Gaza has moved well beyond its ‘right to self-defence’ and its continuing strikes can no longer be condoned. The global community too cannot hide behind the veil of ‘what can we do’ and take on collective ‘responsibility to protect’ innocent Palestinians in Gaza. Continued inaction and failure to protect them can have far-reaching implications to the prospects of peace in the region.

Col Rajeev Agarwal (Retd) is the Assistant Director of Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA), New Delhi. He earlier served as Director in the Ministry of External Affairs and as Director Military Intelligence. He tweets @rajeevidsa. Views are personal.