A year on from the horrific attacks by Hamas and associated groups on 7 October 2023, Israel’s campaign of bloody retribution continues. The consequences include growing regional destabilisation, the undermining of the international system and – most devastatingly – carnage on an unimaginable scale.

As the anniversary neared, any hopes of a let-up in the killing faded. Instead, with Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon and Iran’s recent rocket attack on Israel, the conflict has entered an even deadlier phase. The situation could slide into a broader regional war.

Civilians are paying the highest price. Almost 1,200 people were killed in the 7 October attacks, most of them civilians. Since then, Israel’s indiscriminate and disproportionate response has brought the death toll in Gaza to close to 42,000, the vast majority civilians, including more than 11,000 children. That’s almost 115 deaths for every day of the conflict so far. Ninety per cent of Gaza’s population has been displaced, and almost half a million people face catastrophic food insecurity.

This has never looked like a self-defence mission that precisely targets combatants. Israel doesn’t appear to be making any attempt to measure the likely impacts of its military actions on civilians, as international humanitarian law requires. This is evidently a revenge mission, inflicting collective punishment on people simply for living in Gaza – a war crime under international law.

Now Lebanese people are in the line of fire. The daily death toll in Lebanon is already the highest since the country’s 1975-to-1990 war. Israel has killed the leaders of Hezbollah, the Lebanese party and militia associated with Hamas and Iran, including its long-time Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, killed in an airstrike on 27 September. But just as in Gaza, these are far from surgical strikes. Israel has struck hospitals and killed and injured civilians, including children, in both the airstrikes and the communications pager attacks that preceded them.

Israel is killing Journalists too. Over 130 have died in Gaza during this year of conflict, over 30 of them as doing their jobs, making this the century’s deadliest conflict for journalists. It’s clear Israel has deliberately targeted some journalists to stop them exposing its many human rights violations. Israel has also killed at least 304 humanitarian workers in Gaza over the year, most of them from the United Nations (UN) agency for Palestine, UNRWA, which the Israeli regime has smeared with false accusations.

Power at all costs

This is a tragedy of epic proportions, and it’s entirely man-made. Much of the blame lies with one man, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Already unpopular before 7 October, when his plans to weaken judicial checks on his power were met with mass protests, he’s embarked on a revenge mission to keep himself in power and avoid accountability for the evident security failures that allowed the 7 October attacks to happen.

Netanyahu is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, and appears as motivated as ever to continue to hang onto power. He stitched together Israel’s most extreme government ever to return from a brief spell in opposition in 2022, even as he faces trial on corruption charges.

Netanyahu’s popularity dropped after the 7 October attacks and he’s faced protests from the families of people held hostage; the all-out assault on Gaza has made the release of hostages less likely. But recently, with the attacks on Lebanon, his popularity appears to have bounced back. A former rival politician, Gideon Sa’ar, has just joined his governing coalition, making the government less likely to fall. If the carnage keeps Netanyahu in power, it’s unlikely to stop.

Ineffective international system

Netanyahu looks domestically secure for the moment, and has proved time and again that he’s not remotely willing to bow to international pressure. Israel has a long track record of ignoring international attempts to hold it to account for its human rights violations, including repeated UN resolutions of its illegal occupations in the West Bank.

It’s carried on doing so in the current phase of the conflict, categorically rejecting UN General Assembly resolutions calling for an immediate ceasefire and humanitarian access. It did the same in January when the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an urgent interim ruling on a case filed by South Africa alleging Israel is in breach of the Genocide Convention. The judges found there was a plausible risk of genocide and gave Israel six orders, including to ‘take all measures in its power’ to ensure its forces comply with the Genocide Convention, facilitate humanitarian access and stop public incitements to genocide. Israel simply ignored them.

When the ICJ issued another advisory opinion in July concluding that Israel was committing multiple violations of international law for its illegal settlements, Netanyahu lashed out at the decision.

Israel continues to exploit the weakness and lack of enforcement mechanisms of international law. It’s helped by its staunchest ally, the USA. While it’s clear US President Joe Biden has lost patience with Netanyahu and has tried to restrain him and prevent escalation through quiet diplomacy – a manifestly failed policy – the USA has consistently used its veto power to defend Israel in the key arena of the UN Security Council. As a result, the Council has passed weak resolutions on the conflict following intense negotiations to avoid vetoes, and Israel has found it easy to ignore them. The Council also hasn’t acted on Israel’s failure to follow the ICJ’s orders. The case for Security Council reform to reduce veto use has never been clearer.

At the heart of the UN’s dysfunction is blatant state hypocrisy. Some powerful western states that led the justified international condemnation of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine have pulled their punches with Israel. Germany, the UK and the USA are among the states that refused to back General Assembly resolutions calling for a ceasefire. Several western states have criticised South Africa’s case against Israel even after backing the one The Gambia brought against Myanmar. Many donor states were quick to suspend funding to UNRWA as soon as Israel launched its smear campaign, despite the desperate need for humanitarian aid.

Meanwhile the International Criminal Court (ICC), which prosecutes individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression, has been slow to act. There’s still no sign of the arrest warrants the ICC prosecutor requested in May against Netanyahu, his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders, two of whom Israel has since killed.

The international system put in place to ensure the catalogue of atrocities committed during the Second World War would never be repeated has been found sorely wanting. International human rights and humanitarian law is clearly being flouted in Gaza, and in so many other conflicts around the world, including in Myanmar, Sudan and Ukraine.

If Israel had felt more constrained by international law and under greater pressure to move towards a ceasefire and a peaceful solution, the situation wouldn’t have escalated so dangerously. The fact that Netanyahu used his speech at the high-level opening of the UN General Assembly to denounce the UN as an ‘antisemitic swamp’ before launching strikes on Lebanon from UN headquarters – a moment he ensured was captured on camera for posterity – made his contempt for the institution crystal clear.

Varying pressure

With the UN system largely ineffective, it’s up to individual states to act – and up to civil society to pressure governments to take a principled stand.

Some, like South Africa, have led the way in seeking international justice – a slow process, but one that may eventually hold Netanyahu and his circle to account. Others have recognised Palestine as a sovereign state – a crucial step towards giving it the right to participate fully in the international system and advance towards an eventual two-state solution. In the past year, nine more states have recognised Palestine, including three – Ireland, Spain and Norway – that are NATO members. But there are still major holdouts, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the UK and the USA.

Some states have responded to civil society advocacy, in the form of protests and litigation, by suspending arms supplies to Israel. Spain has gone furthest, stopping arms sales and banning any ships taking weapons to Israel docking at its ports. Canada also says it has halted sales.

Others have introduced partial bans that make symbolic statements but don’t go far enough. In the Netherlands, a civil society lawsuit led to the courts ordering the government to stop supplying F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel, ruling that there was a credible risk they would be used in serious violations of international humanitarian law. But it can still supply components to other countries where the planes are assembled.

Another court case is underway in Denmark, brought by civil society and crowdfunded by concerned citizens, which the government is fighting. Other countries where civil society is taking legal action include France and Germany. Meanwhile in the UK, civil society is appealing against a court ruling in the government’s favour. As in the Netherlands, the new UK government has recently suspended some licences but not for F-35 parts. This leaves Israel free to keep using F-35s to bomb Gaza. And there’s no let-up in the military support coming from the USA, by far Israel’s biggest arms supplier.

Civic space under attack

Civil society in western states keeps pressuring their governments to do more to protect lives, uphold rights and rein in Israel. But it isn’t easy, as over the past year numerous states have restricted protests in response to the conflict.

University students have protested across the USA, calling on their government to stop supporting and supplying the Israeli regime, but the authorities have responded with violence and vilification. Riot police have reportedly used tasers, batons, rubber bullets, teargas and pepper spray against protesters and journalists. Protesters have been vilified as extremist and antisemitic. Wealthy university donors have urged a crackdown, threatening to withdraw funding. It’s getting harder for voices who support Palestinian rights to speak out, including in academia and the media. In May, US Jewish academic Maura Finkelstein was fired for sharing a post by a Palestinian poet criticising Israel.

It’s the same story in Europe, where authorities have banned protests in at least 12 countries and security forces have used violence and intimidation against numerous demonstrations. In Germany, authorities have used mass arrests, pepper spray and water cannon against protesters, and people have been arrested merely for holding up signs calling for an end to genocide. The government says it will deny citizenship to migrants caught using the contested Palestinian freedom slogan ‘from the river to the sea’. Authorities have banned protests in several cities across France, and recently a protester was arrested for using the word ‘intifada’, a term commonly used to describe Palestinian struggles for rights and self-determination.

States must respect the right to call for a ceasefire, recognition of Palestinian rights and a peaceful and lasting solution to the conflict. The alternative to not heeding these voices is ongoing slaughter, which won’t do anything to develop a lasting solution, and can only build up a legacy of grievance, hatred, radicalisation and further retaliation. Civil society is calling for an end to the cycle of violence, urgent de-escalation and accountability for human rights violations. It’s time to listen.

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