The most lethal enemies are the ones attacking with munitions. The most devastating enemies darken their victims’ soul and make them deaf to despair.

Some excerpts;

The Israeli government has responded with indignation that the ICC would have the temerity to compare it to Hamas. Israel has called the court “antisemitic.” President Biden declared the quest for arrest warrants “outrageous.”

“Let me be clear: Whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas,” Biden said in a statement.

The notion of a humane war is a lie combatants tell themselves. The rules of engagement, the laws of war, don’t negate the reality that people die even if those people are uniformed young men and women who are loyal to a cause or who have been drafted or indoctrinated into it. Even morally defensible wars have civilian casualties, deaths that are neither heroic nor acceptable. They are simply devastating.

Democracies are glorious and admirable — the most high-minded form of government — but there is nothing that makes those who lead them inherently immune to revenge, retribution and acts of barbarity. The United States outlaws torturing its enemies until leaders find a way to justify it, rename it or alter the definition to absolve themselves from an unbearable guilt and an unfathomable crime.

It may be that Khan’s request is denied. It may be that the advisory panel’s assessment of Netanyahu’s and Gallant’s actions do not rise to the level of criminal. But the pressing question is not one of jurisdiction or outrage over who else was mentioned in the same breath, but of how a democracy — any democracy — can reach such a dire place on the world stage. How does the defense of its people and protections of its rights lead a democracy to a place where the ICC had “reasonable grounds” to question its moral compass?

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(From Lord Justice Fulford, Judge Theodor Meron CMG, Amal Clooney, Danny Friedman KC, Baroness Helena Kennedy LT KC, Elizabeth Wilmshurst CMG KC)

The attacks by Hamas in Israel on October 7 and the military response by Israeli forces in Gaza have tested the system of international law to its limits. This is why, as international lawyers, we felt compelled to assist when the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, asked us to advise whether there was sufficient evidence to lay charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Today, the prosecutor has taken a historic step to ensure justice for the victims in Israel and Palestine by issuing applications for five arrest warrants alleging war crimes and crimes against humanity by senior Hamas and Israeli leaders. These include applications for a warrant of arrest against the political and military commanders of Hamas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. For months, we have engaged in an extensive process of review and analysis. We have carefully examined each of the applications for arrest warrants, as well as underlying material produced by the prosecution team in support of the applications. This has included witness statements, expert evidence, official communications, videos and photographs. In our legal report published today, we unanimously agree that the prosecutor’s work was rigorous, fair and grounded in the law and the facts. And we unanimously agree that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the suspects he identifies have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity within the jurisdiction of the ICC

It is important to understand that the charges have nothing to do with the reasons for the conflict. The charges concern waging war in a manner that violates the long-established rules of international law that apply to armed groups and the armed forces in every state in the world. And, of course, the warrant applications announced today are just the first step. We hope that the prosecutor will continue to conduct focused investigations including in relation to the extensive harm suffered by civilians as a result of the bombing campaign in Gaza and evidence of sexual violence committed against Israelis on October 7.  There is no doubt that the step taken today by the prosecutor is a milestone in the history of international criminal law. There is no conflict that should be excluded from the reach of the law; no child’s life valued less than another’s. The law we apply is humanity’s law, not the law of any given side. It must protect all the victims of this conflict; and all civilians in conflicts to come.

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Israel’s military has brought utter devastation to the Palestinians of Gaza after the attack by Hamas on Oct. 7. But the extreme response is not only a reaction to the horrors of that day. It is also a product of the decades-long role the military has played in enforcing Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.

The occupation has cultivated a longstanding disregard among Israeli soldiers for Palestinian lives and similar impulses in the words and actions of commanders can be seen to lie behind the horrors of what we are witnessing today.

Israel has governed a people denied basic human rights and the rule of law through constant coercion, threats and intimidation. The idea that the only answer to Palestinian resistance, both violent and nonviolent, is greater — and more indiscriminate — force has shown signs of becoming entrenched in the Israel Defense Forces and in Israeli politics.

I know this through the numerous testimonies collected by my organization, Breaking the Silence, which was formed in 2004 by a group of Israeli veterans to expose the reality of Israel’s military occupation. We know firsthand and from thousands of soldiers that military occupation is imposed on civilians through fear, which is instilled by the growing and often arbitrary use of force.

I also know this because I myself have undergone this moral corruption. I, like many Israeli soldiers, went into the military thinking I knew the difference between right and wrong and had a clear sense of the boundaries on legitimate use of force. But every boundary is destined to be redrawn in a military occupation, whose very existence relies on terrorizing a civilian population into submission.

A military that controls civilians by force for decades is bound to lose its ethical compass. So does a society that sends its military on such a mission. The horrors of Oct. 7 have accelerated and intensified this process. The death and destruction that have been brought upon Gaza will shape the future of Palestinians and Israelis for generations to come. There will have to be a profound moral reckoning.

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The artist Ahmad Hmeedat grew up in Dheisheh. In one project, he organized a group of Palestinian children to paint a mural of Handala opening a wall and facing Jerusalem.Credit…Margaret Olin

Columbia students occupying Hamilton Hall — which they renamed Hind’s Hall — in April unfurled a banner with the Palestinian cartoon character Handala, a boy with his back turned.Credit…Bing Guan for The New York Times

When pro-Palestinian student protesters took over Hamilton Hall at Columbia University last month and renamed it “Hind’s Hall,” the banner they unfurled contained images of a cartoon character created over 50 years ago that symbolizes the resilience of Palestinians.

On either side of the text were two images of a barefoot boy with tattered clothes and spiky hair, his back turned to us.

The character is called Handala (variously transliterated as Hanzala or Handzala), a name derived from a native plant that is deep-rooted, persistent and bears bitter fruit, and has become a potent symbol of the Palestinian struggle. The image was created by the Palestinian political cartoonist Naji Al-Ali in 1969, one of the most widely read cartoonists in the Arab world, who was murdered in London in 1987. (The case remains unsolved.)

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