On October 26th 2024, the Director-General of the World Health Organization characterized the situation in Northern Gaza as “catastrophic.” Over this past year, numerous organizations have issued repeated warnings about the severe risks to humanitarian assistance posed by the use of non-discriminate war tactics. For humanitarian organizations, conflict has become the most significant threat to their mission and to the safety of their personnel. As these agencies still combat to deliver much-needed aid, they often find themselves at risk, sometimes directly targeted, becoming prey amid never-ending escalations of violence. This raises an untenable feeling of urgency to safeguard the neutrality of humanitarian missions and to keep protecting those who endanger their lives to protect those of others and crucial ethical questions on the politicization of aid in times of conflict.

Breaches of The Geneva Conventions 

There is a noticeably growing moral duplicity in characterizing hits on civilian population and humanitarian infrastructure as “collateral damage.” Even deliberate attacks on protected personnel and population are being legitimized under the pretext of citizens being used as “human shields” by the conflicting parties. Everything is becoming justifiable in the name of self-defence. A state can now argue for the massive endangerment of a civilian population based on the idea that it is defending a moral duty to undermine the stronghold, which the opposing belligerent braces on a population. 

As Israel has argued multiple times, civilian deaths from its strikes are the result of its targeted hits which are all related to Hamas or Hezbollah targets, thereby successfully legitimizing the murder of civilians. The Fourth Geneva Convention and the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions mandate the protection of civilians in times of war and prohibit attacks that do not distinguish between military targets and civilians. Article 51 of Additional Protocol I, without any ambiguity, prohibits attacks that may cause incidental loss of civilian life or damage to civilian objects in disproportionate ways to an anticipated military advantage. In addition, Article 52 of Additional Protocol I clarifies that civilians should not be targeted. 

The concept of “human shields” has become a contentious point; however, the conventions assert that even in such cases, the attacking party must take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian harm. The invocation of terms like “collateral damage” or “human shields” to justify widespread civilian harm raises questions of compliance with these international standards designed to limit harm to non-combatants and uphold humanitarian principles in conflict. As Israel signed and ratified the Geneva Conventions, their motives for not respecting these conventions are to be questioned urgently.  

Restricting Food Delivery

Not only are Israel’s motives not to respect the Geneva Conventions to be questioned, but so are their use of humanitarian services as tactical targets in the war to be investigated as part of a broader danger of politicizing humanitarian assistance. In April 2024, a World Food Programme (WFP) vehicle was hit by the Israeli army in Gaza, leading to a temporary suspension of operations for staff safety, a setback directly impacting thousands dependent on WFP’s assistance. HRW has denounced Israel’s intentions of using the blockade of humanitarian food relief as a “weapon of war”. Of course, such actions are prohibited by Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Conventions, more specifically Article 54, which prohibits starvation as a method of warfare. Since October 7th 2023, many instances of Israeli protesters blocking the entry of aid into the strip have been noted and encouraged by ministers of the government as part of a war tactic: “We can consider reducing the scope of supplies as part of the pressure to build a different mechanism in the Gaza Strip.” 

This contravenes Article 23 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which mandates that all parties to the conflict must allow for the passage of essential supplies, also specifying they should be protected from interference. In addition, this violates Article 59, which states that if a civilian population is subject to an occupying power, the latter has to permit and facilitate relief efforts carried out impartially by humanitarian organizations. While there is an active debate around defining Israel’s hold on Gaza, on whether to call it a blockade – as Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005 – or an occupation, it is possible to argue they are an occupying power. Indeed, Israel is the one holding material power over the territory, as it manages demographic (dis)placements and the distribution of wealth and resources in the territory, not a Palestinian government. 

It is therefore highly likely that Israel’s actions are directed not only at defending itself against Hamas, but also as part of a broader strategy to strengthen control over the distribution of the Palestinian population in the territory. This would constitute a tactical advancement for Israel as part of a broader strategy to gain control over all the Palestinian territory, as settlement expansions hit records over this past year and, with some ministers even calling for Israeli Sovereignty in the West Bank.

Damaging Health Facilities

In addition to restricting food delivery, Israel has continually been endangering health access and facilities in the Gaza Strip. Organizations like the United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the Red Crescent, the Red Cross, and Médecins Sans Frontière (MSF) have faced unprecedented challenges in administering aid as violence escalates. Hospitals have growingly been under siege and unable to assist civilians who urgently require medical assistance. 

Only 7 UNRWA health centers remain operational out of 27, and at least 237 UNRWA personnel have been killed since the beginning of the war. As the causes of the explosion at Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Northern Gaza in October 2023 remain disputed, the consequences traumatized the world and were multilaterally condemned. The WHO recently published a report decounting numerous intentional strikes and raids on the few still functioning hospitals in Gaza: as of November 6th 2024, the WHO has recorded 557 health attacks. This further violates Article 70 and 71 of Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Conventions, both focusing on the neutrality and necessity of humanitarian help, as well as the necessity for belligerents to ensure the protection of humanitarian personnel.

The recent Israeli assertion that Palestinians will not be able to return to their homes in Northern Gaza confirms the long-standing fears of Palestinians and the International Community of “mass ethnic cleansing”.1 This further delegitimizes Israel’s claims of a defensive war despite its self-defensive character having become a necessary condition to pass any resolution regarding the war at the United Nations Security Council. The strategies used by the Zionist state therefore sanction the language endorsed by the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, who criminalizes Israel’s actions by calling the past year’s tragedies a “Colonial Genocide”. 

Endangering International Normative Order

Hence, it is possible to assume that the strategic targeting of humanitarian services reflects war aims that significantly differ from those of conventional warfare. Here, the tactical targeting of humanitarian services and its politicization is motivated by a wish to delegitimize, even annihilate, the UN’s broader legitimacy. It moreover delegitimizes the standing of the norms to be respected in times of conflict, ironically from a state whose existence was itself legitimized by the UN. Being met only with threats of limited help and never of condemnation or material repercussion, the legitimacy of jus in bello suffers simultaneously with the targeted population. This strategic targeting of humanitarian help significantly questions the legitimacy of the laws of war; more broadly, it questions the sources of international normativity since the end of World War II. All things considered, when tactics of warfare violate the Geneva Conventions, their Additional Protocols, and the normative guidelines of international relations, we should be motivated to question the broader strategy and aims of the state responsible for such disruptions.

  1. The Lemkin Institute has warned against the use of the term “Ethnic Cleansing”, denouncing it as a  “euphemism for genocide and forced deportation”. ↩︎

Edited by Alice Viollet and Tatum Hillier

The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and they do not reflect the position of the McGill Journal of Political Science or the Political Science Students’ Association.

Featured image by Doctors Without Borders

References:

Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention. “‘Ethnic Cleansing’ Is a Euphemism Used to Deny Genocide.” Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention. Published November 1, 2023. https://www.lemkininstitute.com/single-post/ethnic-cleansing-is-a-euphemism-used-to-deny-genocide