On Saturday, around the world, thousands of people took to the streets to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and show their solidarity with the Palestinian people. Around 20 rallies took place in Canadian cities, including Montreal, where demonstrators marched downtown. As the sadness, pain and devastation grow, so does outrage over the unprecedented violence inflicted on Palestinian civilians.
The bar of 10,000 Palestinian deaths, including more than 4,000 children, was crossed this week, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza, as the brutality of Israel’s strikes continues to increase. On the Israeli side, there are still 1,400 civilian deaths, according to the government of Benjamin Netanyahu.
In Gaza, hundreds of men, women and children are also trapped under the rubble. With no machinery to move the debris and crumbled concrete slabs, it is impossible to extricate the bodies. People are exhausted, they are hungry, they are thirsty and they have only their arms to extract their loved ones from the ruins. This inflicted helplessness adds to the dehumanization.
The longer the Israeli response continues, the more visible the cracks in the narrative that all precautions are being taken by Israel to minimize civilian casualties and spare humanitarian facilities. One wonders what the point of these efforts is if we even bomb ambulance convoys, as was the case near al-Chifa hospital last Friday. Similarly, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) denounced the bombing of its installations. The organization’s commissioner general, Philippe Lazzarini, also indicated that 99 of his UN colleagues had been killed in Gaza since October 7.
The echoes from the field undermine the fine promises of precaution, reflecting instead the implementation of a desire to wipe the slate clean not only of Hamas, but of Gaza, regardless of what is on the road. I’ve said it here before: it’s not as if the Israeli government is hiding its intentions in this direction. They are clear, displayed, repeated on all occasions.
This week we had to listen to this Doctors Without Borders nurse, who had just returned from Gaza, telling on CNN how, from the start of the Israeli offensive, every soul on the territory of the Palestinian enclave found itself exposed. to the same dangers, to the same extreme deprivations, to the same dehumanization. Without distinction.
She also explained that it was thanks to the heroic solidarity of Gazans that humanitarian workers and foreign nationals stuck in this territory after October 7 were able to survive until their evacuation. “We would all have died within a week, had it not been for their help,” she said, emphasizing the injustice of the line drawn between those who could flee to safety and those who could not. This also illustrates the total, undifferentiated nature of the ongoing assault.
Obviously, calls for a ceasefire from humanitarian organizations, citizen groups and international legal observers continue to multiply. In light of international humanitarian law, there are not many doubts left to be dispelled about the multiple transgressions committed by Israel over the past month — not to mention those perpetrated in the long history of occupation of Palestine.
However, even if Hamas has also committed war crimes, there are observers who question the extent of the counter-offensive, in light of the parameters governing the right of States to self-defense. These criteria encourage us to look at the proportional nature of a response taken as a whole, rather than on each of the actions taken during its implementation.
Before we jump to the ceiling, it is not a question of denying Israel’s right to defend itself: it is a question of recalling that the right to self-defense, for Israel as for all States, is regulated by tags. That, in the circumstances, given the humanitarian damage caused and the risks inherent in the bombing of a densely populated place like Gaza, these limits are violated. And that a ceasefire must be ordered.
This argument is neither more nor less weighty than the demonstration of war crimes perpetrated by Israel, and the denunciation of a possible genocide in progress against the Palestinians. However, it offers a legal complement that could help the international community justify the demand for an immediate ceasefire.
On Thursday, Israel announced that bombing in northern Gaza would take brief daily “humanitarian pauses” of four hours. We understand that this is the bone that we are throwing at the international community, which has been asking for several weeks now (albeit timidly) that we give the Gazans a respite.
Canada is among the Western governments that have paid lip service to Israel agreeing to such truces. This request, no one is fooled, looks more like an alibi for the good conscience than a real hardening of tone towards Israel.
The announcement of these humanitarian pauses will undoubtedly succeed in silencing the critics, for a while at least. However, members of the international community would have everything in hand, both legally and factually, to take a further step and firmly demand a real ceasefire. This omission reflects their accurate measure of the humanity of the Palestinian people.
Columnist specializing in environmental justice issues, Aurélie Lanctôt is a doctoral student in law at McGill University.