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submitted 8 months ago by snek@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

Hamas’ brutal attacks in Israel on October 7 killed at least 1,400 people and the group took more than 200 hostages, according to Israeli authorities. In the wake of the assault, Israel launched an aerial bombardment of Gaza that Palestinian health officials say has killed more than 5,000 people. Israel also announced a “complete siege” on the enclave, withholding vital supplies of water, food and fuel.

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[-] HappycamperNZ@lemmy.world 6 points 8 months ago

Reading your link - deliberate starvation of civilians with intent to cause civilian harm or death, or eliminate a part of the population is indeed a war crime.

Also quoted from your link - a blockade is only intended to remove resources from adversarial forces, impediment of humanitarian aid is incidental harm. They key difference here is intent, and with Hamas seizing aid crossing the border and not distributing it any reasonable person would agree that it is stopping supplies to opposing forces.

Does it suck for civilian population - absolutely. But its not a war crime. Personally I think a coalition of multiple countries needs to go in and remove hamas, get aid set up for the civilian population and then investigate crimes on both sides - but that's not going to happen.

[-] livus@kbin.social 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

@HappycamperNZ I think you have an eccentric interpretation of international law that is contrary to most expert opinion. Which is fortunate because starving civilian populations for any reason is a gruesome thing to do and is quite rightly illegal.

Starving the civilians in this context is widely seen as illegal. Here are some examples of legal consensus opinion I found from a quick google:

I accept that you will easily be able to point me to competing positions, largely from Israelis and Americans, but I think you should be aware that these are in the minority.

this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2023
483 points (93.5% liked)

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