By Serena Bazzana During the last week, the representatives of the EU and its members expressed unconditional support for Israel, which is violating international law by committing war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocidal campaigns, and ethnic cleansing towards the Palestinian in the occupied territories, including apartheid and starvation. However, the European Union describes itself as a “firm promoter and defender of human rights and democracy across the world, as well as within its own borders.” Photo Credit: Carlos Latuff | Brasil 2047 On October 7 at 6:30 a.m., Hamas fired around 2,200 rockets towards southern and central Israel, killing and taking as hostages approximately 250 civilians and soldiers. As with any other type of violence, this brutal attack needs to be condemned. However, condemnation of Hamas does not equate full and indiscriminate support for the Israeli government. Furthermore, contextualizing the situation is essential, as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict did not start with the October 7 attack but has its roots in a history of 75 years of oppression. Hamas is an Islamist militant movement and one of the two major Palestinian political parties. It is labeled as a terrorist organization by the US, Israel, and many Western countries. Hamas won the majority in the last election in Gaza in 2006 for the social services provided to Palestinian families and as a rejection of the other political party Fatah, which is corrupted and subordinate to Israel. However, since then Hamas has lost consensus. In 2021, the scheduled elections were postponed by Fatah under the persuasion of Israel. Hamas is extremely functional to Israel for justifying its occupation of Palestine because of its violent militant faction and its ideas of “war until victory” and rejection of a two-state solution. Following the Hamas victory in the 2006 elections, much of the international community cut aid to the Palestinians. Israel bombed Gaza’s only electrical power plant, causing widespread blackouts and Egypt closed the Rafah Crossing (Egypt-Gaza border) leading to a further isolation of Gaza. Since 2007, the Gaza Strip has been under the siege of Israel with a naval, terrestrial, and aerial blockade, limiting the movements of goods and people. As Israeli settlements grow, tens of thousands of Palestinians have been forcibly evicted. In 2008, Israel built an Iron Wall surrounding the Gaza Strip to impede people from leaving, even to receive life-saving medical care, effectively turning Gaza into a concentration camp. Before the recent escalations, the humanitarian situation for Palestinians in Gaza was already dire. Since 2007, Israel has restricted Gaza’s electricity to four hours per day, as well as drinking water, food, fuel, and medicine. Half of the population lives below the poverty line, with 8 out of 10 people relying on international aid. Gaza has a density of 4,091 people per square kilometer and is one of the most densely populated places in the world. 50% of the 2 million population are children under the age of 15. The median age is 18 years old and less than 3% of the population is over 65 years old. For years, the UN has described Gaza as “unlivable” due to Israel’s brutal siege. Since 2008, Israel has killed more than 6400 civilians, including over 2300 children. When Israel is not bombing the Gaza Strip, it is depriving Palestinians of their basic needs for survival. Photo Credit: Statista In 2011, a UN Independent Panel ruled that Israel’s blockade of Gaza amounts to collective punishment in “flagrant contravention of international human rights and humanitarian law.” Collective punishment is not the only war crime committed by Israel. According to Article 8(2)(a) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Isreal has been committing willful killing, torture and inhuman treatment, willfully causing great suffering and serious injury to body and health, extensive destruction and appropriation of property not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly, and unlawful deportation, transfer and confinement. The list is much longer, including the use of white phosphorus weapons and the unlawful and intentional attacks against civilians and humanitarian assistance personnel (Article 8(2)(b)). Israel is also committing various crimes against humanity. As Article 7 of the Rome Statute states, Israel is guilty of murder, extermination, deportation and forcible transfer of population, torture, persecution against an identifiable group or collectivity on racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious and other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law, and the crime of apartheid as assed by the UN Special Rapporteur. On October 14, 2023, UN experts warned about the risk of mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians due to the ongoing intense Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip. Furthermore, a UN envoy accused Israel of conducting a “genocidal” campaign, exemplified by the statement of Yoav Gallant, Israel’s Minister of Defense: “[w]e are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly.” Photo Credit: @vonderleyen on X
“Targeted attacks on civilian infrastructure with the clear aim to cut off men, women, children from water, electricity and heating with the winter coming – these are acts of pure terror.” These are the words of the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Russian targeted attacks against Ukrainian civilian infrastructure. Clearly, one year later, those words are irrelevant and meaningless. The European Commission President stated multiple times that Europeans “fully support Israel,” without condemning any of the previously described crimes against humanity, war crimes, risk of ethnic cleansing, or genocidal campaign. Indeed, the European Union has always supported Israel and closed its eyes to the use of unjustified violence. These actions speak for a union that is promoting hypocrisy and double standards instead of democracy and human rights. Therefore, the question comes naturally, is the European Union really upholding universal human rights? Or are they implying that some lives are more important than others? Bibliography https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2022/02/israels-system-of-apartheid/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-africa/israel-and-occupied-palestinian-territories/report-israel-and-occupied-palestinian-territories/ https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/10/israeloccupied-palestinian-territory-un-experts-deplore-attacks-civilians# https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/10/un-expert-warns-new-instance-mass-ethnic-cleansing-palestinians-calls https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/10/un-human-rights-chief-urges-states-defuse-powder-keg-situation-israel-and https://press.un.org/en/2023/gal3691.doc.htm https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/crimes-against-humanity.shtml https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/water-crisis-poses-catastrophic-threat-life-gaza-conflict# https://imeu.org/article/israel-international-law-the-siege-blockade-of-gaza# https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/palestinian-un-envoy-accuses-israel-genocidal-campaign-against-gaza-2023-10-10/ https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/brief-history-gazas-75-years-woe-2023-10-10/ https://carnegieendowment.org/sada/84509 https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/2023/10/15/list-of-war-crimes-and-crimes-qualifying-as-gecide-committed-by-israel-in-gaza-since-7th-october-2023/ https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/human-rights-democracy_en# https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/%20en/speech_22_6262 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/statement_23_4901 https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-hamas https://www.prb.org/resources/the-west-bank-and-gaza-a-population-profile/ https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/gaza-strip/ https://www.instagram.com/p/Cyggdo4sz8v/?igshid=MzRIODBiNWFIZA== a
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May 2024
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