Netanyahu is already indicted for war crimes - still continuing on the same path
Wolfgang Hansson
This is a commentary text. Analysis and positions are the writer's.
Published 16.54
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is already indicted for using starvation as a weapon in Gaza. A war crime.
Yet he continues on the same path.
Israel is now openly saying that no aid will be allowed until Hamas releases the Israeli hostage.
It has been almost two months since Israel allowed any humanitarian aid to enter Gaza. The long lines are queuing on the other side of the border in Egypt but are not allowed to enter.
Not even essentials such as food, water and medicine, which are necessary for the more than two million inhabitants of Gaza to survive, are allowed to pass.
Unlike before, this is not something Israel is trying to hide. On the contrary, Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz says that it has deliberately stopped all aid as a strategy to get Hamas to release the remaining Israeli hostage. Hamas was behind the terrorist attack in Israel on October 7, 2023.
It is believed that 58 people are still being held, 24 of whom are believed to be alive.
-We have no intention of allowing any aid to enter Gaza as long as Hamas does not release the hostages, Israel Katz states. Blocking aid is one of our main methods of putting pressure on Hamas.
He is relatively new as defense minister. The previous one, Yoav Gallant, was fired by Netanyahu in November. But before that, both he and the prime minister were indicted at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, ICC.
They are suspected of war crimes. Among other things, for using starvation as a weapon during the war that has now been going on for over 18 months. At that time, the aid was not stopped completely, but Israel allowed far too few trucks with food, medicine and medical supplies in. The then US President Joe Biden was one of many world leaders who pressured Netanyahu to allow enough aid in.
Israel blamed the fact that it took time to inspect the cargo to ensure that no weapons or materials that Hamas could use in the war were being smuggled in.
Netanyahu also claimed that Hamas seized many of the aid shipments for its own purposes.
The ICC prosecutor did not buy the explanations. It does not matter what the circumstances are. It is a violation of international law to deliberately starve a civilian population.
Despite the indictment, Israel is intensifying this very prohibited method.
Katz is supported by Israel's Minister of Security Ben-Gvir.
–As long as our kidnapped people rot in the tunnels, there is no reason to allow a single gram of food or other aid to reach Gaza.
This time it seems that the world is so used to Israel's actions that it is no longer reacting. Few protests are heard from world leaders despite the UN and aid organizations on the ground in Gaza repeatedly sounding the alarm about the catastrophic humanitarian situation as stocks of food and medicine run low.
Malnutrition is already a fact in Gaza according to aid organizations and at least several children are reported to have already died of starvation.
One reason why the protests from the outside world have subsided may be that everyone knows that since the US is no longer pressuring Israel to allow aid into Gaza, there is no one who can in practice force Israel to obey. Israel only listens to the US and sometimes not even that, as the case of Biden shows.
Another may be that the world fears that the focus on the need in Gaza will lead Israel to decide to empty the enclave of people instead. President Trump has already proposed that the United States take over Gaza and empty the area of people while it is rebuilt. Trump would like to see it transformed into a resort, a Middle Eastern Riviera. The Palestinians who live in Gaza today should not be allowed to return. The Palestinian problem will be solved simply by moving them to other countries.
That too is a violation of international law.
The main stumbling block is that at present there are no countries that are willing to accept more than a few of the more than two million inhabitants.
Israel could have released the hostages by negotiating phase two of the ceasefire, which was part of the original agreement with Hamas. But Israel refused because phase two would have meant that Israeli troops would have had to leave Gaza completely.
Israel broke the ceasefire in mid-March and is now trying to bomb the hostages.
At the same time, it has occupied about 30 percent of Gaza. An occupation that Israel threatens to make permanent.
Netanyahu is increasingly criticized at home for not really caring about the hostages at all. That he is only keeping the war going so he can stay in power.
Not long ago, former Philippine President Duterte was surprisingly put on a plane to The Hague to face charges of crimes against humanity. Netanyahu does not seem particularly worried that a similar fate will befall him.
But on the day he is forced to resign, perhaps he should be.
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