Israeli courts cannot and will not prosecute Israel’s war crimes
For more than nine months now, the United States and other close allies of Israel have repeatedly defended the conduct of the Israeli army in Gaza and occupied West Bank.
In defending the Israeli army, Israeli allies often refer to the opportunity to seek justice for crimes in Israeli courts.
Israel’s legislative and judicial authorities do recognise international law and conventions. However, through legal exceptions, they also create spaces for the total disregard of international law by Israeli officials and security and military forces. This erodes the prohibitions from international law on matters of grave importance.
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The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) has documented that between 2001 and 2022, more than 1,400 claims of torture by Israeli authorities were made, but only two were investigated and none resulted in indictments.
That is because agents of the Shin Bet (internal security services) and Israeli soldiers are protected by a legal loophole which allows for “necessity” to determine if torture can be used in all so-called “ticking bomb situations”. These scenarios are loosely defined and justify the use of torture to extract information from a suspect that can supposedly help avert imminent danger to life and national security. Despite how open to interpretation a “ticking bomb situation” can be, this exception was upheld by two rulings by the Israeli Supreme Court in 1999 and then again in 2018.
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The matter of collective punishment shows a similar pattern. In practice, the Israeli army regularly exercises collective punishment on a large scale. This includes the demolition of family homes of suspected “terrorists” in the occupied Palestinian territory and the 17-year-long siege on the Gaza Strip.
Israeli courts have consistently rejected the claim that these two policies amount to collective punishment.
Regulation 119 (1) of the Israeli Emergency Laws allows for the demolition of houses as punishment for committing illegal actions or if there is a suspicion that an illegal action is taking place in that home, even if multiple generations live in it. This is directly contradictory to Article 33 of the Geneva Convention as the policy disregards any non-involved people living in the house and therefore constitutes collective punishment.
Nevertheless, in 1986, an Israeli court ruled that demolitions were not collective punishment, based not on the impact of home demolitions (which do affect whole families), but instead based on the odd consideration that it would make Regulation 119 (1) redundant as it would only be applied to “terrorists” who supposedly live alone.
More surprisingly, the same court argued that demolitions are a “deterrent” rather than a “punishment”, and that the collective impact (of the punishment) actually enhanced the deterring effect.
Judges have also been unwilling to “intervene”, as they are reluctant to infringe on the authority of Israeli field commanders, leaving these decisions entirely to their discretion, in violation of Article 71 of the Geneva Convention. These rulings have effectively closed the door on judicial accountability for this crime. To this day, no Israeli soldier has been prosecuted for the demolition of Palestinian family homes.
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In the case of the Israeli siege on Gaza – which has been widely recognised as a form of collective punishment – Israel has also sought to dodge international law provisions.
Before October 7, Israeli officials and legal pundits argued that the siege was a set of economic sanctions. After October 7, the Israeli government imposed a total blockade, cutting off water, electricity, food and medical supplies. Despite the UN and various human rights organisations pointing out the clear evidence of collective punishment, including starvation, Israeli officials claimed that its forces are allowing enough aid “to prevent a humanitarian crisis”. According to Oxfam, the calorie count in Gaza currently stands at 245 per day, roughly a quarter of the bare minimum needed to avoid starvation.
Against this background of internationally prohibited practices, authorised by judicially created legal exceptions that contradict international law, the Israeli legal system has consistently failed to hold the Israeli authorities accountable for violations of international law. In fact, by upholding loopholes, Israel’s judiciary has systematically enabled torture and authorised instances of collective punishment.
Over the years, Israel has put a lot of effort into covering up the abyssal gap between international standards and Israeli army policies, facilitated by a convoluted system of legal exceptions. Now, the house of cards has come tumbling down.
Has it though? The ICC arrest warrants are still on hold under US pressure on UK labour, which has succeeded again.
UK Labour makes U-turn, shields Netanyahu from ICC arrest warrants
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240717-report-uk-labour-makes-u-turn-shields-netanyahu-from-icc-arrest-warrants/
Recent reports indicate that the UK Labour government has reversed its decision to withdraw objections to the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants targeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. This decision, reported by the Israeli newspaper Maariv, suggests that Labour has succumbed to pressure from the US, which has been lobbying against dropping the legal challenge.
The US keeps deferring any questions about accountability and war crimes to Israel to investigate (clear) themselves.
The ICJ keeps sitting on their hands despite more countries joining the genocide case and move evidence stacks up daily.
https://www.icj-cij.org/index.php/case/192
May 24 were the last provisional measures
https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20240524-sum-01-00-enc.pdf
Which Israel has all ignored
The UNSC is not doing anything, blocked by US veto, and will not uphold the ICJ provisional measures.
USA and Europe are fully complicit in the genocide but will only impose some token sanctions on a few Settlers, which aren't enforced anyway.
Meanwhile US, UK, Germany keep sending more bombs to kill more children.
UNOCHA says Israeli court rejected appeals against evictions in East Jerusalem
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says an Israeli court has rejected an appeal by 11 Palestinian families against eviction from their homes in occupied East Jerusalem, placing 66 people at risk of forced displacement.
“More than 600 structures have been demolished in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since the beginning of 2024 due to the lack of building permits, displacing more than 750 people,” the body said in its latest update.
Israel has intensified evictions, land confiscation and home demolitions, despite settlement expansion into Palestinian territory being prohibited under international law.
#WestBank:
❗️An Israeli court ruling rejects appeal against eviction of 11 Palestinian families in East Jerusalem; +60 ppl risk displacement
❗️Israeli military operation in Nur Shams refugee camp damages dozens of residential buildings, stores, sewage and water networks
More 👇
— UN Humanitarian (@UNOCHA) July 17, 2024
