The United Nations revealed this week that Israel killed 44 Palestinian civilians sheltering in UN schools during last summer’s war in Gaza. The inquiry also found that Palestinian militants had stored weapons at UN schools that were not being used as shelters. The report casts grave doubt upon Israel’s vociferous claims that it was only attacking Hamas fighters. It also confirms widespread reporting at the time that Israel was targeting civilian installations during the conflict, which left 1,486 Palestinian civilians dead.
Unfortunately, this shocking inquiry reveals nothing new about the conduct of the Israeli military. Since its founding in 1948, Israel has been accused of deliberately targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure. In the midst of Operation Grapes of Wrath in 1996, to take just one example, Israel shelled a UN compound in southern Lebanon – where 800 Lebanese civilians were sheltering from the offensive – killing 106 civilians. The operation’s declared aim was to diminish Hizbollah’s ability to fire rockets into Northern Israel.
Then, as now, the country’s aggressive PR machine went on the offensive, demonstrating utter contempt for any shred of evidence that indicated the Israeli military deliberately killed Arab civilians in the course of combat. The new report is a dispiriting rerun of what went before but the question to ask is this: what recourse, if any, do Palestinians have?
The International Criminal Court, of which Palestine has become a member, is a good place to start. Israel, which has not joined the ICC, had been bitterly opposed to Palestinian membership. Tel Aviv was probably worried that an ICC finding that it committed war crimes would add to international efforts to isolate Israel. Given Israel’s de facto boycott of the ICC, it would admittedly be difficult for the Palestinians to pursue reparations claims for victims. Palestinian fighters could even become vulnerable to war crimes litigation. But with few options left, there is little for Palestine to lose and a lot to gain by pursing Israel through the ICC. As with apartheid South Africa, the world will not tolerate Israeli aggression forever.
