Tornado Alley (PROG)

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SoxFan, Though genocide is defined differently in different people's minds Israel's war against Palestinians sure ticks many boxes:

Is Israel Committing Genocide in Gaza? New Report from BU School of Law’s International Human Rights Clinic Lays Out Case

The report comes from researchers at the University Network for Human Rights, a consortium of human right centers

June 5, 2024
Alene Bouranova

One question that has been fiercely debated and argued in the eight months since the violent and deadly attack against Israel by Hamas on October 7, 2023, is whether Israel’s swift counteroffensive has reached a point where it could be defined as a deliberate genocide.

Now, an “objective, methodological, and detailed analysis” conducted in part by the Boston University School of Law’s International Human Rights Clinic as part of a report from the University Network for Human Rights (UNHR), a consortium of human rights centers at colleges across the world, has released its finding.

The UNHR report .. https://www.humanrightsnetwork.org/genocide-in-gaza , released in mid-May, concludes: “Israel has committed genocidal acts, namely killing, seriously harming, and inflicting conditions of life calculated, and intended to, bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza,” says Susan Akram, a LAW clinical professor of law and director of LAW’s International Human Rights Clinic, who contributed to the report.

The report was researched and written by UNHR members from LAW’s International Human Rights Clinic, ??the International Human Rights Clinic at Cornell Law School, the Centre for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, and the Lowenstein Human Rights Project at Yale Law School.

The report’s conclusions are based on internationally agreed upon definitions of genocide. “As set forth in the Genocide Convention of 1948,” the report reads, “the crime of genocide requires that a perpetrator kill, seriously harm, or inflict conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of a group, in whole or in part, with the intent to destroy the group as such.” The report continues: “after reviewing the facts established by independent human rights monitors, journalists, and United Nations agencies, we conclude that Israel’s actions in and regarding Gaza since October 7, 2023, violate the Genocide Convention.”

The UNHR report comes at a time when Israel is drawing increasing global condemnation for its acts following the October 7 Hamas attack that killed an estimated 1,200 Israelis and saw another 250 taken hostage. Over 36,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli military’s counter-offensive against Hamas, including more than 14,000 children, according to recent estimates from the Gaza Health Ministry. Israel has faced, and repeatedly denied, accusations of deliberately targeting civilians, aid workers, and refugee camps—such as a recent gruesome and deadly strike on a tent encampment—and purposely creating starvation conditions in Gaza.

In recent weeks, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nations top court, ordered Israel to halt its military offensive in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, where an estimated 1.5 million displaced Palestinians have taken refuge. The International Criminal Court (ICC), an intergovernmental organization and tribunal, moved to file arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity, as well as for Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, and Ismail Haniyeh.

At the end of May, US President Joe Biden announced a new three-part Israeli proposal for a permanent ceasefire.

The UNHR does not excuse the atrocities committed by Hamas in October, Akram says. Rather, the network’s report examines Israel’s argument of self-defense and the tactics the Israeli military has deployed in combating threats from Hamas.

“Self-defense is not an excuse to commit genocide,” Akram says. “Self-defense must conform to international humanitarian law, which requires an armed force to meet the criteria of necessity, proportionality, and distinction. Israel’s actions fail the tests of humanitarian law.”

Akram spoke to BU Today about the report, the obstacles to a ceasefire, and what the UNHR thinks the international community needs to do going forward.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Many more links and more - https://www.bu.edu/articles/2024/is-israel-committing-genocide-in-gaza/

And don't listen to brooklyn13, he is as dishonest about this board as he is biased in Israel's favor on the question of the war ..

[...]John Spencer's Misinformation
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One other - Israeli Civilian Harm Mitigation in Gaza: Gold Standard or Fool’s Gold?
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Following the October 7 atrocities committed by Hamas on the people of Israel, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) response in Gaza has drawn criticism for the resulting civilian death toll. The conflict has now claimed more than 30,000 Palestinian lives, with some estimates putting the daily death toll as exceeding that of any other major conflict of recent years. This is in contrast to statements from individuals such as Ron Dermer, Israel’s Minister of Strategic Affairs, who has described Israel’s efforts to minimize civilian casualties as effective and “unprecedented.” Some commentators agree with Dermer. For example, John Spencer, an expert on urban warfare, has claimed that the IDF “has implemented more measures to prevent civilian casualties than any other nation in history” and is “the gold standard.”

As an analyst who has helped define the field of civilian harm mitigation, worked with militaries to implement it, and helped develop U.S. policies on civilian harm as a senior advisor to the State Department, I find this statement misguided. Yes, the IDF takes a number of steps designed to protect civilians, for example, the practices of roof knocking and warning calls and texts to residents. But the gold standard for civilian harm mitigation is not a checklist of steps but rather an iterative process to learn and adapt. Israel has yet to demonstrate that it has embraced this process. More importantly, the data–not just the staggering death toll, but key attributes of the campaign–suggest Israel’s steps are not working.

To be sure, protecting civilians in Gaza is no easy task. Conducting military operations in the densely populated urban areas of Gaza while avoiding civilian harm poses immense challenges. Hamas hides within the civilian population and uses subterranean tunnels to move weapons and fighters. U.S. and coalition operations over the past twenty years show that even the most professional militaries, committed to compliance with international law, face real challenges mitigating civilian harm in conflict in similar or analogous urban settings, including in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan.

But after more than four months of fighting, it is important to closely examine the question, “how is the IDF doing and what can it do better?” Civilian harm mitigation is an emerging expectation in modern warfare, evidenced in part by the widespread commitment to declarations like the Political Declaration on the Use of Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas. It is also a critical question for countries providing military support to Israel to inform the nature and level of their continued support. This question should be of key interest to the Israeli government itself as public support domestically and internationally wanes due to the scale of civilian harm.

What is Civilian Harm Mitigation?

Civilian harm mitigation is a relatively recent development, and there is often confusion about what it means. The concept emerged from U.S. military operations over the past two decades, but even the United States is still in the process of institutionalizing these lessons. Among its foundations is the idea that modern militaries consider the protection of civilians in their efforts to comply with international humanitarian law such as the Geneva Conventions and their Protocols. This includes, for example, a process for estimating collateral damage, selecting weapons that will be effective against the target but reduce damage to other nonmilitary structures, weaponeering processes designed to find the optimal angle and direction of approach for an attack, and developing “No-strike lists” for protected and sensitive sites.

Systematic U.S. civilian harm mitigation efforts, for example, were introduced in Iraq to address chronic problems at checkpoints leading to the deaths of civilians. It involved tracking incidents and learning lessons from them. As forces at checkpoints learned to guard against attacks while reducing the risk to civilians, fewer civilians were killed.

A more mature and comprehensive process was developed in U.S. and international operations in Afghanistan as a response to mounting civilian harm. Starting in 2006, Afghan leaders and the international community expressed alarm over significant numbers of U.S.-caused civilian casualties in Afghanistan, and U.S. leaders saw the issue of civilian harm becoming a strategic problem detracting from the military campaign.

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