Israel’s decision to deprive Palestinian civilians living in Gaza of access to basic needs violates international law, former Human Rights Watch chief Kenneth Roth said.
“In the realm of humanitarian necessities, the Israeli government has imposed a siege on all of Gaza,” Roth said in an interview with Al Jazeera.
Roth, who now teaches at Princeton University, added that the atrocities committed by the Hamas armed group against Israeli civilians do not justify the “revenge” and “collective punishment” against Palestinian civilians.
“A basic premise of international humanitarian law is that war crimes by one side never justify war crimes by the other. There’s an independent obligation by both sides to respect the laws of war.
“It increasingly does look like the Israel military is proceeding without adequate care to spare civilians. And that kind of indiscriminate and disproportionate attack … is in itself a war crime.”
The civillians there did not. The last election in Gaza was held 17 years ago.
The median age in Gaza is around 18 meaning the leadership was chosen when half the population hadn’t even been born yet, let alone able to vote.
To put that in perspective it’s like if the US was still ruled by George Bush and no one had ever had a chance to vote him out.
They surely did, by harboring Hamas and not demanding better.
@Rapidcreek I suppose you probably blame the citizens of North Korea for “harbouring” Kim Jong Un, too. But that’s just not how life actually works.
Collective punishment of civillians is always a war crime, but blaming people with no access to free and fair elections in order to justify it is particularly cynical, especially when nearly half of them are still children.
I do. They let Kim be their ruler do they not?
So it’s the fault of oppressed people for being oppressed?
You can take a walk through history and see oppressor and oppressed in every era. A common thread is when people are oppressed by internal forces they either revolt and take power or simply live with the oppression. Even the attempt to revolt is important.
Gaza has a two fold problem. First they ruled by Hamas who don’t give a shit about them. Plenty of Palestinians hate Hamas, but not enough to make a difference. Secondly, they are oppressed by Israel due to Hamas.
They can either live with this or revolt. They’ve chosen to live with it.
Man, it’s a real sign of living the privileged, easy life when someone thinks this way.
Those people try to revolt and they die. They don’t revolt and still die. What kind of choice is that?
Yeah they do. People that stand in front of tanks can get run over.
Palestinians literally protest this situation all the time, but are ignored, or shot for it.
“You didn’t violently rebel, so anything that happens to you (and your children) afterwards is your fault.” This is some straight evil shit.
So according to you, Hamas is oppressing Palestinians, and Israel is oppressing Hamas, but it’s only righteous for Palestinians to stand up to Hamas. Isn’t it also important for Hamas to stand up to their oppressors?