EDITORIAL: Unruffled by unceasing denunciation of its genocidal war on Gaza, thanks to the US’ steadfast support, Israel has come up with a new plan to emasculate the besieged Palestinian enclave.
As reported by the Jewish state’s media, its military had started to create an ‘informal buffer zone’ about a kilometre wide, the claimed aim being to prevent attackers from reaching Israeli communities near Gaza.
Satellite images captured by Planet Labs PBC, a San Francisco-based company, show entire residential buildings flattened and ruined agricultural fields in the area. It is yet another move at land grab in blatant violation of international law.
Taking notice of this illegal and immoral behaviour, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, has issued a statement reminding Israel that “Article 53 of the Geneva Convention prohibits destruction by the occupying power of property belonging to private persons” and that the objective of creating a buffer zone for general security purposes is inconsistent with the narrow “military operations exception set out in international humanitarian law.
Furthermore, he emphasised that such “extensive destruction of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly amounts to a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and a war crime”. But backed by most European countries — and the US, of course — Israel takes no account of disapproval whether by mass public protests or UN bodies.
Just last month, in a ruling on a case brought by South Africa against Israel, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) had issued a ruling ordering Israel to take all measures to prevent genocidal acts, prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to genocide, only to be shrugged off. Nearly 28,000 Palestinian lives, a large number of them children’s, have perished in ceaseless bombing raids, with the casualty figures swelling each day and night.
Considering its track record in creating a ‘security belt’ around Gaza, Israel is looking to confiscate more and more Palestinian lands for further expansion of Jewish settlements, rightly seen by the Palestinians as an act of ethnic cleansing.
To them it is a sign, too, that the ongoing war of aggression has failed to achieve the Jewish state’s military goals in Gaza. And as a former UN war crimes prosecutor, Geoffrey Nice, aptly noted in his comments to an international TV channel, what they are proposing, effectively and in anyone’s interpretations, is occupation.
He also raised the pertinent question, “if you want to [have] a demilitarised zone that you’re going to fill with landmines, why not have it on the Israeli side and stop people crossing it?” There is no better explanation than this for the intentions behind Israel’s latest act of unremitting aggression.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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