It’s now been more than 200 days of Israel’s bombardment on Gaza, estimated so far to have killed over 42,500 people, injured more than 79,200 and displaced some two million. The destruction – of people’s homes, schools and hospitals – is beyond words.

From day one, civil society has been working on all fronts to respond. Aid workers on the ground, many of them Palestinians, have mobilised to provide essential services and share vital information. Appallingly, many have paid with their lives, along with at least 137 journalists, killed while trying to do their job to tell the world the truth.

Civil society around the world has offered solidarity, but it’s been incredibly difficult to get aid in. Israeli authorities have repeatedly blocked humanitarian aid despite the United Nations (UN) Security Council December resolution, which demanded immediate, safe and unhindered humanitarian access, and the interim ruling the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued in January, which ordered Israel to facilitate access.

Around the world millions of people moved by the suffering and injustice are feeling the need to speak out. They’ve taken to the streets in solidarity, calling for a ceasefire and an arms embargo on Israel and urging their governments to pressure Israeli authorities to stop the bloodshed. In many cases, even in longstanding democracies with reasonably healthy civic space, they’ve been arrested and criminalised for doing so. Solidarity protests have been banned in at least 12 European countries, and demonstrations in US universities have been met with vilification, violence and arrests.

Alongside street pressure, civil society has embraced another tactic: taking to the courts to try to stop governments allowing the export of weapons to Israel that could be used to commit war crimes. Courts are increasingly siding with civil society.

The Dutch trailblazer

In December 2023, amid growing concerns about apparent violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza, three civil society organisations – Oxfam Novib, PAX and The Rights Forum – filed a lawsuit against the Dutch government. Civil society activists said they decided to take legal action after several unsuccessful appeals to their government to stop supplying Israel with F-35 fighter jet parts that appeared to be being used to bomb Gaza. The court initially refused to order an end to military exports, but campaigners appealed.

Momentum built after the January ICJ ruling, which found it plausible that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza and issued a preliminary order that Israel should take measures to prevent it. This prompted some private corporations to take at least symbolic action. The Japanese company Itochu Corp, for example, announced it was ending its cooperation with an Israeli arms manufacturer.

On 12 February, the Court of Appeals in The Hague overturned the previous decision and ordered the Dutch government to stop all transfers of F-35 parts to Israel within seven days. It cited a credible risk that these aircraft would be used in acts that constitute violations of international humanitarian law.

The court ruling said that after 7 October 2023, the minister of foreign affairs should have reassessed export licences to prevent further exports of F-35 parts to Israel, and made clear that such a reassessment couldn’t be weighed against economic or diplomatic interests. It stated that the applicants didn’t have to prove violations of international humanitarian law; a ‘clear risk’ they might be committed was sufficient. They also didn’t have to prove a direct link between a specific arms transfer and alleged violations of international humanitarian law. However, the court found it plausible that F-35s with Dutch parts could be involved in violations of international humanitarian law.

What’s more, the court rejected the government’s claims that information provided by human rights organisations and UN human rights experts wasn’t reliable, and instead urged it to take them seriously. But the Dutch government has said it will appeal the decision at the Supreme Court.

Shortly afterwards, UN human rights experts issued a statement calling for an immediate halt to all arms exports to Israel on the grounds that ‘any transfer of weapons or ammunition to Israel that would be used in Gaza is likely to violate international humanitarian law’. They welcomed the Dutch court’s landmark decision and echoed and expanded on its arguments – those of the civil society groups that initiated the process.

Ongoing cases

Also in December, the UK-based Global Legal Action Network, together with the Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq, launched a similar case in the UK. As in the Netherlands, the British government defended its position on the grounds of Israel’s right to self-defence and the alignment of arms exports with the strategic interests of the British state. But the first court ruling, in favour of the government, took much longer than in the Netherlands: it came a week after the positive decision by the Dutch Court of Appeal.

Calls for the suspension of British arms sales to Israel gained new momentum in April, following an Israeli air strike that killed seven World Central Kitchen humanitarian workers, three of them British. Adding to the pressure, two days later more than 600 lawyers, academics and retired senior judges, including three former Supreme Court justices, signed a public letter warning that the UK government was breaking international law by continuing to arm Israel. Soon after, a High Court judge granted a judicial review hearing on the case, to take place in October.

Meanwhile, Danish civil society groups decided to take their government to court, something that’s quite unusual in Denmark. They closely followed the Dutch example and focused on Denmark’s exports of F-35 parts. These aren’t exported directly to Israel, but in January Denmark’s foreign minister revealed that 15 Danish companies were supplying components for F-35s ultimately destined for Israel. This sparked a public outcry and set the stage for legal action.

The joint lawsuit was brought in March by Action Aid Denmark, Amnesty International Denmark, Oxfam Denmark and Al-Haq. It claimed that Danish arms components were likely being used in the conflict in Gaza, potentially contributing to war crimes and other violations of international law.

Danish civil society has combined legal action with public advocacy and awareness-raising campaigns. It has organised a successful crowdfunding drive to fund the legal battle and mobilised protests outside factories involved in arms production. But, exactly like its British and Dutch counterparts, Danish government officials continue to argue that the arms exports are legal and serve their country’s strategic security interests.

The litmus test

In some countries, including Belgium, Canada, Japan and Spain, governments didn’t wait for a legal challenge and instead took the initiative to suspend arms shipments to Israel.

In others, the pressure continues. Earlier this month, a coalition of 11 civil society groups brought three separate lawsuits to try to force the French government to suspend its deliveries of weapons and military equipment to Israel due to the risk they could be used to commit serious crimes against civilians in Gaza.

The litmus test will come in Germany, whose arms exports to Israel far exceed those of all the other countries that have been seen legal challenges combined. The German lawsuit was filed on 11 April at the Administrative Court of Berlin by the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights alongside three Palestinian organisations – Al Haq, the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. The lawsuit’s main point – that its arms exports to Israel could make Germany complicit in violations of international law, including the crime of genocide – has a special resonance in Germany. It demands the German state live up to the values it claims guide its foreign policy. The German government hasn’t yet responded or commented on the case. Civil society hopes the lawsuit will build political pressure to stop the government’s complicity in the slaughter.

Each of the efforts is helping put pressure on governments to uphold international human rights and humanitarian laws and hold the Israeli state to account. Civil society around the world will keep using every peaceful means possible – from street protests to public campaigning to legal action – to call for the killing to end and justice and peace to prevail. Standing on the sidelines while feeling helpless simply isn’t an option.

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