The Today debate: Israel-Gaza - are we witnessing war crimes?
Update:
Date: 19:45 BST
Title: Welcome to the Today debate
Content: Anna FosterRadio 4 Today presenter
In this debate we ask a question. What we won't
provide is an answer.
But we will give
space and time to debate an important issue, and to ask vital questions on one
of the most pressing topics of our time - the war in Gaza.
We're talking about war crimes.
A week ago, the
former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert wrote an opinion piece for the
liberal daily newspaper Haaretz. He described how he'd defended Israel's
military campaign in Gaza to audiences around the world. But now, he said, his
opinion had changed. "Yes", he wrote, "Israel is committing war crimes".
The decision on
whether someone is guilty of war crimes will always be made in a court, not a
radio studio. Words like 'genocide' are a legal definition of a specific crime,
rather than an emotive description of events that upset us. The latter use -
incorrect until a judge decides - is increasing.
Normally, many
decades pass before perpetrators are convicted of war crimes. Some die without
ever going on trial.
But although the passing of judgement takes time, it
shouldn't negate a conversation about events in the moment when they happen.
Israel is refusing to let international journalists into Gaza to report what's
happening on the ground in real time. Local journalists do their best. But
there's much that we're not seeing in the way we would with other conflicts.
On 7 October 2023, Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups broke through the fence
bordering Gaza, and rampaged into southern Israel. They killed about 1,200 people, and injured many more. They burned homes to the ground, and
took 251 hostages - some of whom were killed in captivity, and some of whom remain
in Gaza - held away from their loved ones for 606 days.
In the hours that
followed that seismic event, Israel declared a state of war with Hamas in Gaza.
The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated his aims - to release the
hostages, to keep Israel safe from future attacks, and to destroy Hamas.
To date, the
reported number of people killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza stands at more than
54,000. Among them are Hamas' most senior leaders,
the people who planned and carried out the deadly 7 October attacks.
That
total also includes large numbers of women and children. Back in March, Israel
collapsed a ceasefire deal which it had agreed with Hamas. It then refused to
allow any humanitarian aid into Gaza for more than two months, which Israel said was meant to put pressure on Hamas to release the remaining hostages. The IPC - the
body which assesses famine - said the population of more than two million
Palestinians was facing starvation. Several members of the Israeli government
have spoken publicly about their goal of displacing them from Gaza altogether.
Hamas is a
proscribed terror organisation in the UK, US and EU, with sanctions in place
against the group and its members. Israel is a member of the United Nations, a
major non-Nato ally, and a friend of Western nations - who arm it and support
its right to defend itself.
The Geneva
convention was established after World War Two, to try to prevent
atrocities like it from happening again. It details crimes such as murder,
torture and taking hostages that should never be carried out, with times of
conflict no exception. It also describes the war crimes of wilfully causing
great suffering, excessive incidental death or injury, and deportation.
Which returns us to
where we began, and those comments by the former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert. After 20 months of this conflict, have we witnessed war crimes in
Israel and Gaza?
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