Always ready to go beyond limits

 

 

Benjamin Netanyahu
Netanyahu is constantly crossing new boundaries

Wolfgang Hansson

This is a commenting text. Analysis and positions are the writer's.

Published 17.20

Quick version

• Israel's shelling of UN troops in southern Lebanon is considered a violation of international law. Pretense of mistake is being called into question as the attacks coincide with Israel's demands for UN troops to leave the area.
• Attacks on hospitals and schools in Gaza, which Israel claims are being used by Hamas, have resulted in many civilian deaths and are considered war crimes. The UN accuses Israel of deliberate attacks on the medical infrastructure in Gaza.
• Israel has declared the UN Secretary General persona non grata, underscoring the country's isolation in the international arena. This is happening at the same time as the death toll in Gaza, mainly civilians and children, continues to rise.

Several of the attacks in recent days show that Israel's prime minister is prepared to step over ever-new boundaries.

Shelling UN troops to make them abandon their mission is a clear violation of international law. Shelling of hospitals and schools usually falls into the same category.

The feeling is that recent Israeli successes in the war against Hamas and Hezbollah have caused Benjamin Netanyahu to take increasingly greater risks and listen less and less to international opinion or even the few allies Israel has left.

A few things stand out.

Israel's repeated shelling of the UN troops, UNIFIL, stationed in southern Lebanon.

The UN is there on a peacekeeping mission decided by the UN Security Council. Such decisions are binding on all Member States.

Israel has certainly had bad relations with the UN for a long time, but that does not mean that you can ignore the UN Security Council.

Israel claims that the shelling of Unifil was accidental.

Allow me to doubt.
 

If you get direct hits at the UN headquarters in Naqura in southern Lebanon, it is not due to bad luck or incompetence. Especially as Israel, while saying that the shelling is accidental, demands that the UN forces move. The shots are simply a message to the UN that they are unwelcome.

If Israel has views on the presence of the UN troops, they can turn to the Security Council. Israel cannot on its own initiative force the removal of the UN troops. Such action is a clear violation of international law.

Benjamin Netanyahu. Photo: Richard Drew/AP

Israel's latest attack on al-Aqsa hospital in Gaza.

Israel claims the target was a command center for Hamas. Whether there was one is impossible to judge because Israel does not allow foreign journalists into Gaza. Therefore, independent eyes and ears are missing.

What we do know is that a number of civilians seeking shelter in the area were hit by the attack, which also sparked a major fire among the plastic tents when people's gas tubes used for cooking exploded. A number of people were burned alive, according to several witness accounts. Similar fires have occurred in previous attacks in the densely populated tent camps.

Just a few hours earlier, Israel fired at a school in Nuseirat killing at least 20 people.

Shooting at hospitals and schools is a war crime. Exceptions exist if it is obvious that the enemy is using these premises for their warfare.

Israel has more or less routinely attacked schools and hospitals during the year-long war. Each time, Israel justifies it by saying that these are used by Hamas. But rarely or never is any concrete evidence presented that this is indeed the case.

Hospitals and schools have effectively ceased to function and have instead become places where the civilian population sought refuge.

I have no doubt that on occasion Hamas hides in schools and hospitals and effectively uses the Palestinian population as human shields. The group ignores the well-being of the population.

A building in Gaza City that was completely destroyed in an Israeli attack. Photo: Hatem Moussa / AP

But Israel must also reasonably take into account the civilian population that has camped around these places after Israel turned their regular homes into rubble. They simply have nowhere to go. In many cases, the Israeli army has urged them to go there.

How many civilian casualties does Israel think the outside world should accept in order to maybe succeed in killing a Hamas man? How many are you prepared to accept as the Middle East's only democracy?

In an upcoming UN report whose conclusions have already become known, Israel is accused of committing war crimes in Gaza. The UN investigation led by Navi Pillay, the former head of the UN refugee agency UNHCR claims that Israel is deliberately destroying the health infrastructure in Gaza. A large part of the hospitals and health centers are no longer functioning. Ambulances and hospital staff are regularly attacked.

Israel reacts as usual to the criticism. In violent verbal outbursts, the report writers are accused of being biased. There is not a hint of reflection or admission that one might have committed any mistakes.

Suffice it to say that while Israel thinks it is protecting civilians as best it can, even most of Israel's allies are of the opposite opinion.

António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations. Photo: Seth Wenig/AP

Israel has also taken the unique decision to declare UN Secretary-General António Guterres "persona non grata". A diplomatic term for he is not welcome to visit Israel.

Banning the head of the world organization is extremely remarkable and contributes to further isolating Israel in the international arena.

Israel claims, after a little over a year of war in Gaza, to have knocked out a large part of the forces of the terror-labeled group. But most indications are that a majority of the more than 40,000 dead in Gaza are civilians. Among them 11,000 children.
 

The full extent of Israel's warfare will not be exposed until foreign journalists are allowed into the enclave. But the satellite images already show that two-thirds of all buildings are destroyed or damaged.

A war that Israel is now repeating against Hezbollah in Lebanon and where they want to get rid of the only independent eyes and ears the outside world has in the form of the UN troops.