Israel's retaliatory air strikes in the Gaza Strip have killed more than 9,000 people.
A Palestinian man carries a dead child found under the rubble of a destroyed building, following Israeli air strikes in Jabaliya refugee camp, northern Gaza Strip, Nov 1, 2023. SINGAPORE: Mass civilian deaths from Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip raise questions about the proportionality of Israel’s response, even as Israel says those strikes target Hamas’ underground infrastructure, military and security experts told CNA.
Dr Dorsey, who focuses on politics and social change in the Middle East and North Africa, was previously a foreign correspondent covering ethnic and religious conflict, including in the Middle East. “However, protected areas would lose their protection if they are deliberately used by Hamas militants for their military operations. Nevertheless, armed forces are obliged to distinguish between civilians and combatants and ensure that proportional military force is used when targeting such areas,” he said.
Dr Vennesson, who is also a professor of political science at the University Pantheon-Assas, Paris II, studies international security, including strategic thought and judgment and decision-making in war. Commenting on Israel’s ability to precisely locate military targets, Dr Jean-Loup Samaan, senior research fellow at the Middle East Institute, said the IDF has sensors to detect Hamas’ underground infrastructure in the Gaza Strip.
While Dr Dorsey said collective punishment has been “a principle of Israeli policy throughout” its occupation of the West Bank and that the current situation is “collective punishment on a far greater scale”, other experts did not A surgical strike would still inflict “massive casualties” in an urban environment, “so the question is not really if Israel could reduce the intensity of its air strikes but if it could rely on other means such as ground forces”, said Dr Samaan, adding that this would involve many casualties among Israeli soldiers.
Internationally accepted rules of armed conflict emerged from the 1949 Geneva Conventions, which have been ratified by all UN member states and supplemented by rulings at international war crimes tribunals. Collective punishment is addressed under Article 33 of the fourth Geneva Convention, which states that no protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed.The Geneva Conventions and subsequent rulings by international tribunals show that proportionality is not a numbers game where the toll of civilian casualties on one side can be compared to the other.
“The one who prevented thousands of Gazans from evacuating was Hamas, who shot the people who asked to do so, and blockaded roads with Hamas-owned vehicles,” Mr Hazan said.
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