The Israeli Government’s Plan for Gaza is Genocide

(WASHINGTON, DC) — In response to reports of the components of the Israeli Security Cabinet-approved plan for the full takeover of Gaza, Center for International Policy President & CEO Nancy Okail issued the following statement:

“The Israeli government’s reported plan to fully take over the Gaza Strip, destroy remaining structures, concentrate its entire population in a single zone, and facilitate their displacement from the territory would – together with other actions already taken – clearly cross the threshold into an act of genocide under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The Israeli Security Cabinet’s approval of the plan comes after six weeks of deadly Israeli assaults in Gaza following the Netanyahu government’s abrogation of the hostage release and ceasefire agreement with Hamas, and a year and a half of devastating war.

“Independent of whether or not one regards the legal threshold for genocide as having already been met by prior Israeli actions in Gaza, implementing the reported plan would violate the Genocide Convention’s prohibition on ‘deliberately inflicting on [a] group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part’. It would also be yet another breach of provisional orders by the International Court of Justice designed to protect the Palestinian people from a plausible risk of genocide. Additionally, persons who aid or abet the acts outlined in the plan, including through facilitating the transfer of arms to Israel that are used in connection with implementing it, may open themselves to liability for the crime of complicity in genocide set forth in the convention.

“The open planning of such a crime against humanity has been made possible by the near-total failure of the international community, and the United States and other major suppliers of arms to Israel in particular, to uphold international law created to prevent such horrors from taking place ever again. The very countries that led codification of the the law of war have utterly abdicated their duty to enforce it in the face of avoidable mass civilian casualties, the targeting of protected sites like shelters and hospitals, the killing of protected persons like aid workers and medics, and massive restrictions on the delivery of humanitarian aid including a now total siege on all food, medicine and other necessities of life – all as Israeli officials repeatedly and publicly call for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

“Countries that aspire to uphold the rule of law and basic humanity must finally draw a line and take actions to prevent implementation of this plan. First and foremost, the United States and other arms suppliers should comply with domestic and international law, as others have, and halt their shipments of offensive weapons to Israel. States Parties to the Rome Statute, regardless of past positions, should recommit to enforcing the orders of the International Criminal Court, including all outstanding arrest warrants. Individual countries and multilateral organizations should also consider and make clear that implementation of the Israeli government’s plan may result in further legal action against Israeli officials and sanctions against Israel itself.

“In the coming days, world leaders face a choice by which they will be judged for generations – whether they did what they could to stop a genocide. Those who decline to do so, or even call this crime against humanity what it is, will be regarded by history as having failed that most basic test.”