The 'legally killed children' of Palestine: Who is Israel at war with?

The 'legally killed children' of Palestine: Who is Israel at war with?

"I told them Ali is six years old. They gave me a plastic bag containing 18 kg of body parts and told me 'This is your son; go and bury him,'" said Hassan Ahmad, a Palestinian father. Ahmad's son was among the displaced Palestinians offering the morning prayer at a small mosque in the Al-Taba'een school in the Al-Daraj neighbourhood of eastern Gaza, a designated "safe zone." Israel bombed the school on the dawn of August 10, killing more than a hundred Palestinians, mostly women and children.

The victims were dismembered beyond recognition, thereby leaving the hospital authorities with no option to identify the deceased. Thus, they reportedly collected the flesh and other body parts spread around the site, put it into separate plastic bags each weighing 70 kgs and gave it to families of those who were reported missing after the attack. The authorities made sure that they packed the bags with a little less flesh, if it was to be given as the remains of a child.

"I don’t know if this is my son or not, I don’t know what I’m carrying in this bag. They said it is my son, I don’t know anything, I don’t see anything of my son in this bag," Hassan Ahmed told media.

Three days later, on the morning of August 13, another Palestinian father went out to get the birth certificates of his three days old twins- Aser and Aysel. Minutes later, Abu al-Qumsan returned to find his twins, along with their mother and grandmother killed in an Israeli strike that targeted their apartment at the Deir Al-Balah area in the centre of the Gaza strip. Abu al-Qumsan said his family had moved to the apartment, in a designated "safe zone" after being displaced from their home.

If these heartbreaking stories resonate with you, the official number of civilian casualties in the West Asia crisis since October 2023 will be more devastating. Israel's ground and aerial operations in Gaza have claimed the lives of 42,000 people, with a majority being women and children. As of October 4, the total civilian deaths in the West Asia crisis stood at 43,706, including 42,000 Palestinians and 1,706 Israelis.

While there are civilian deaths both sides, the glaring difference in the numbers obviously raises a troubling question: Is Israel targeting civilians, particularly innocent women and children, in blatant violation of the Law of War, International Humanitarian Law and the Principle of Proportionality?

The grief in Gaza

"Gaza was the first time I held a baby’s brains in my hand. The first of many," Dr. Mark Perlmutter, an American orthopaedic surgeon who volunteered in Gaza wrote in a letter addressed to the US government.

"Every one of us who worked in an emergency, intensive care, or surgical setting treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head or chest on a regular or even a daily basis. It is impossible that such widespread shooting of young children throughout Gaza, sustained over the course of an entire year is accidental or unknown to the highest Israeli civilian and military authorities," said the letter signed by as many as 99 American healthcare professionals.

"This war is a war on children. It is a war on their childhood and their future," said UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini after a UN report released on March 14 revealed that Israel has killed more children in the five-month period between October 2023-February 2024 than all conflicts worldwide did in the past four years combined.

According to a recent Oxfam report, more women and children have been killed by Israel in Gaza over the past year than in any other conflict over the past two decades in a single year.

The report also noted that Israeli explosive weapons hit civilian infrastructure in Gaza - including schools, hospitals and aid distribution points - once every three hours.  

According to the latest figures announced by the Health Ministry of Gaza, at least 17,000 of the 42,000 Palestinians killed by Israel in Gaza are children. This includes as many as 2100 infants and toddlers. Israeli forces also killed as many as 3,000 embryos stored in Gaza's largest fertility clinic.

"The record number of women and children killed in Gaza does not include those among nearly 20,000 people who are either unidentified, missing or entombed beneath rubble.," the Oxfam report noted.

Apart from the children, at least 11,400 women, nearly 1,000 health workers, 174 journalists and 220 UN workers were killed by Israel in Gaza.

A recent study by The Lancet Journal reveals that these figures could be inaccurate due to the peculiar circumstances including the destruction of infrastructure and limited resources in the Gaza strip that makes data collection difficult. The Lancet Journal estimates the real death toll to be more than 1,86,000 i.e 7·9% of the total population in the Gaza Strip. This hints at a further staggering number of murdered children as most attacks carried out by Israel on the Gaza strip post October 7, 2023 have seen an overwhelming number of women and children being killed.

Israel's war on Gaza is unprecedented in several ways for the extent of crimes committed against humanity, as noted by several reports. Israel has killed the most number of journalists in the shortest period (even more than those killed during World War II which lasted six years). Israel has also killed an overwhelming number of healthcare professionals including 165 doctors, 260 nurses, 300 management and support personnel, 184 health associate professionals, 76 pharmacists and 12 other health workers. At least 77 healthcare workers have already been killed by Israel in Lebanon. As many as 902 Palestinian families have been wiped off from the face of earth by Israel, according to a statement published by the Government Media Office in Gaza on October 2.

As Israel has extended its attacks to Lebanon, Yemen and Syria, the deafening silence around the crimes committed by it raises a question. How is Israel able to get away with it?

'Legally killed children'

On the night of May 26, just two days after the International court of justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to halt its military offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, Israel dropped around eight missiles on a camp packed with makeshift tents sheltering displaced Palestinians.

The attack killed at least 45, mostly women and children. Images of dozens of burnt, beheaded children were all over the social media. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the attack was a “tragic mistake.”

After bombing the Al-Taba'een school situated in a "safe zone" designated by its own military, Israel said the attack was on a “command and control centre” of "Hamas terrosits," without any evidence to prove the claims. In the same week it bombed four other schools, all housing displaced Palestinians. It gave the same justification, again without providing any evidence.

Two weeks into its war on Gaza, Israel bombed the al-Ahli Arab Hospital situated in Gaza's Old City killing at least 500 Palestinians, mostly women and children. A month into the war, Israel has already committed 137 attacks on the healthcare facilities in Gaza. It also attacked and destroyed the Al Aqsa Hospital, the largest in Gaza, killing hundreds of civilians including children, patients, medics, journalists and women.

"Only 17 of 36 hospitals (in Gaza) remain partially functional, and all suffer from a lack of fuel, medical supplies, and clean water," the Oxfam report noted.

Israel justified the attacks saying Hamas used it as "command centres," again without providing any evidence.

American doctors who volunteered in Gaza testified that they saw no signs of militant activity in Gaza's hospitals.

"The 99 signatories to this letter spent a combined 254 weeks inside Gaza’s largest hospitals and clinics. We wish to be absolutely clear: not once did any of us see any type of Palestinian militant activity in any of Gaza’s hospitals or other healthcare facilities," the letter said.

"We urge you to see that Israel has systematically and deliberately devastated Gaza’s entire healthcare system, and that Israel has targeted our colleagues in Gaza for torture, disappearance, and murder," the doctors said.

In an op-ed published in the American magazine The Atlantic, dated May 17, 2024, the author in defence of Israel argues that it is possible to "legally kill children."

"It is possible to kill children legally if for example one is being attacked by an enemy who hides behind them. But the sight of a legally killed child is no less disturbing than the sight of a murdered one," the article argued.

The article was met with severe criticism from various circles with many questioning the dehumanization of Palestinian children encompassed in the argument.

"The Atlantic published a justification for the murder of Palestinian children—making the distinction between a “legally killed child” and a “murdered one,” and arguing that killing Palestinian children is not just a legitimate act of war but a necessary one. Today, a video out of Rafah showed a martyred baby, beheaded with no legs. This, for The Atlantic, is a “legally killed child,"” the 'Writers Against War on Gaza' wrote on Instagram.

The argument is reportedly based on the rule of proportionality, one of the three fundamental governing principles for the protection of civilians during an armed conflict put forward by the International Humanitarian Law (IHL).

The proportionality principle requires the parties involved in a military conflict to strike a balance between incidental civilian causalities and military advantage. It prohibits any military action that results in excessive incidental civilian causalities as compared to the "concrete and direct military advantage anticipated."

Can this law be used to justify the killing of children and other Palestinian civilians?

"The answer is no. There is no existing legal provision that justifies murder of Palestinian children," Suchitra Vijayan, an expert in international law, writer and founder of The Polis Project told The New Indian Express.

She explained that even in cases of clear military targets, attacks that would cause excessive civilian damage are not justified under the proportionality law.

"If an attack is going to harm civilians in excess, you cannot do it. This means the attack on Al Shifa Hospital by Israel is not justified under international law. The attack on UN schools cannot happen," she said.

"Often proportionality happens in the context of a military target. Civilians are not military targets. The issue is that they have now claimed that the entire Muslim population whether it is Palestinian, Lebanese, Yemenis, Syrian or Libyan are all military targets," she said.

Dr Waiel Awwad, senior war journalist and West Asia strategist told The New Indian Express that Israel's attacks are targeted at ethnically "cleansing the Palestinians and annihilating the historic Palestine."

"The main objective of the Israeli government led by Netanyahu is to cleanse the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and West Bank and annihilate the whole of historic Palestine, so the dream of having a Jewish state will be fulfilled," Awwad said.

"They (Israel) do not believe in a Palestinian state... they want Palestinians under occupation to give up their land and surrender to Israel," Awwad said adding that the "blind support" granted to Israel by the US is facilitating the atrocities and war crimes committed by it.

Anil Trigunayat, writer and former Indian ambassador to Libya and Jordan told The New Indian Express that Israel resorted to carpet bombing of Gaza, thereby targeting the civilians.

"Gaza is a very narrow strip, the most densely populated area in the world. Israel carpet-bombed this area. It was only recently they started precision strikes on tunnels and so on. They shifted people from one end to the other and then attacked the same place. The civilian casualties have occurred because of that," Trigunayat noted.

Since such targeted and excessive killings of civilians cannot be justified under the international law, Israel came up with the idea of "human shield," noted Suchitra.

"This concept did not exist in international law until Israel, the US, and Britain created an exception to the proportionality law. That is why they take the proportionality test and say the entire population is a military target," Suchitra said.

This was made possible by the Obama administration through the 'Kill Chain,' she explained. Before that, even though civilians were targeted it wasn't easy to justify it.

It is very lethal, she pointed out, because they have taken a rule that is supposed to limit civilian casualties and attacks on properties, twisted it, and used it to justify killing the same civilians.

"That entire concept is reversed on its head," she said.

Suchitra, who teaches Human Rights & Oral History at Columbia University pointed out that this "manipulation of legal language" have happened before.

"They (the US) did this when they picked up young Muslim men from across the world and took them to places like the Guantanamo and other extraordinary rendition sites. They came up with a word called "forever prisoner" which enabled them to incarcerate people whom the US felt as a threat for as long as they want without having to provide any proof," she said.

"Who is going to go after them(Israel) if they are supported by the United States?" asked Trigunayat adding that defiance of international law has become a norm.

The unconditional support extended by the West to Israel is also reflected in narratives like "legally killed children" being pushed through its media to legitimise the crimes committed by Israel, Suchitra noted.

"Media is the single most potent machine of propaganda. We saw this in 9/11, and we are seeing it again now. Media manufactures consent, it justifies imperialism and manufactures impunity," she said.

She pointed out the double standards of Western media when it comes to reporting on crimes committed by Israel and the West.

"Media plays the single most important role in amplifying the propaganda of the empire. This (Israel) is an empire, not a war. You cannot go into another country like Israel did in Lebanon, it's called occupation. This is modern-day colonization which is banned under international law. Look at how the media is reporting on it. Not a single word about invasion or colonization," she pointed out.

"When it comes to Russia and Ukraine it is reported as an invasion but when it comes to violence committed by Israel against Palestine and Lebanon, it is reported as "sending ground troops," Suchitra said.

"It is insane that they portray the counter attacks on Israel as horrifying while glorifying Israel's indiscriminatory attacks on thousands of innocent civilians. This encourages their respective countries to send more weapons to Israel to further escalate the aggression. These propagandists are helping in this vicious war as partners in crime against humanity," Awwad said.

In April 2024, The Intercept reported that The New York Times had instructed its journalists covering Israel's war on Gaza to refrain from using terms like “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing.” It also reportedly asked the journalists to not use the phrase “occupied territory” when describing the Palestinian land.

"Since the US media is mostly controlled by a Jewish lobby, it is quite possible that they only give the Israeli narrative," noted Trigunayat.

Suchitra alleged that media contributes to dehumanisation and framing of an entire population which enables these powers (the West) to carry out their attacks with impunity.

"The New York Times reporting on the mass rape in Gaza has been debunked several times but both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris continue to use it as justification. When the invasion of Libya happened, Hillary Clinton said that the men of the Libyan army were taking 'Viagra' so they could rape more women. This framing of Arab Muslim men as sexually deviant beings was used by Clinton as an excuse to invade Libya, while a disproportionate amount of mass sexual violence against people have actually been committed by the European and Western armies," she explained.

Though these narratives are prevalent and dominant, it is being challenged extensively and new narratives are emerging, Trigunayat said adding that many European countries have recognised the state of Palestine.

"We have seen that there have been protests and a lot of debates even in the House of Congress and Parliaments across the world including the West" in favour of the Palestinian cause, Trigunayat said.