(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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( Pakistan is paying heavy price for its religious extremism. India and Israel are on the same destructive course of religious extremism. Will they suffer the same fate as Pakistan?)

Families grapple with anguish and isolation as they try to raise their children in a country that increasingly questions their very identity.

t is a lonely feeling to know that your country’s leaders do not want you. To be vilified because you are a Muslim in what is now a largely Hindu-first India.

It colors everything. Friends, dear for decades, change. Neighbors hold back from neighborly gestures — no longer joining in celebrations, or knocking to inquire in moments of pain.

“It is a lifeless life,” said Ziya Us Salam, a writer who lives on the outskirts of Delhi with his wife, Uzma Ausaf, and their four daughters.

When he was a film critic for one of India’s main newspapers, Mr. Salam, 53, used to fill his time with cinema, art, music. Workdays ended with riding on the back of an older friend’s motorcycle to a favorite food stall for long chats. His wife, a fellow journalist, wrote about life, food and fashion.

Now, Mr. Salam’s routine is reduced to office and home, his thoughts occupied by heavier concerns. The constant ethnic profiling because he is “visibly Muslim” — by the bank teller, by the parking lot attendant, by fellow passengers on the train — is wearying, he said. Family conversations are darker, with both parents focused on raising their daughters in a country that increasingly questions or even tries to erase the markers of Muslims’ identity — how they dress, what they eat, even their Indianness altogether.

The breaking point came two years ago, when Yogi Adityanath, a Modi protégé, was re-elected as the leader of Uttar Pradesh, the populous state adjoining Delhi where the Salam family lives. Mr. Adityanath, more overtly belligerent than Mr. Modi toward Muslims, governs in the saffron robe of a Hindu monk, frequently greeting large crowds of Hindu pilgrims with flowers, while cracking down on public displays of Muslim faith.

On the day of the vote counting, the friend kept calling Mr. Salam, rejoicing at Mr. Adityanath’s lead. Just days earlier, the friend had been complaining about rising unemployment and his son’s struggle to find a job during Mr. Adityanath’s first term.

“I said, ‘You have been so happy since morning, what do you gain?’” he recalled asking the friend.

“Yogi ended namaz,” the friend responded, referring to Muslim prayer on Fridays that often spills into the streets.

“That was the day I said goodbye,” Mr. Salam said, “and he hasn’t come back into my life after that.”

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