INTRODUCTION
Palestine’s topic has never been a fresh issue with the Israelis, and it is important to note that this topic has been occurring
for decades and did not originate specifically after October 7, as it is trying to be shown, even so, this study’s focus will be, about what happened on this famous date of October 7 and analyze the circumstances surrounding the incident, including how it happened, why it was initiated, how the response was received, and how it should have treated both parties, but what especially was the reason of attack, and the strategies used.
What is meant by Palestine is all of Mandate Palestine, which is all of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. On the other hand, Israel is a country that claims sovereignty over 78% of Mandate Palestine, which was occupied in 1967 but whose was not recognized by the international community as occupation. This is precisely where the conflict starts.
However, since October 7, 2023, after the attack of Hamas, Israel has launched numerous attacks on Gaza, resulting in the deaths and injuries of thousands of innocent people, violating international laws and conventions, including International Criminal Law, ICC rulings, the Geneva and Hague Conventions, and the UN Convention on Conventional Weapons. Israel's actions include bombarding civilians, journalists, hospitals, schools, religious sites, and cultural heritage, using phosphorus bombs, mistreating prisoners, imposing embargoes on essential supplies, and forcing mass displacement, constituting war crimes and crimes against humanity. Despite these actions, countries like the US, France, Germany, the UK, and Canada provide military and political support to Israel, legitimizing its attacks and maintaining embargoes on Gaza, failing to pressure Israel to comply with international law. In response, global academics, human rights defenders, artists, journalists, opinion leaders, clergy, judges, and prosecutors are calling for international action to end the suffering in Gaza, hold perpetrators accountable, protect the rights and freedoms of Gazans, lift the embargo, reconstruct Gaza, and establish an independent Palestinian state. This thesis aims to address the prosecution of Israel and its supporters for genocide and war crimes against Gaza, based on data from mass media, social media, news portals, journal articles, books, and other relevant sources.
And if we look at the crimes that fall under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court are the most serious crimes that threaten the peace, security, and well-being of humanity. These crimes include genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes of aggression. The crime of genocide is committed by deliberately killing members of a national, religious, or ethnic group, inflicting severe mental or physical harm on them, subjecting them to harsh conditions intended to destroy them, preventing their birth, or forcibly giving their children to other groups.
On the other hand, war crimes are defined in Article 8 of the Rome Statute and fall under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. They can occur during international or non-international armed conflicts and include serious violations of the Geneva Conventions committed against protected persons and property. War crimes encompass intentional homicide, inhumane treatment and torture, biological experimentation, destruction of protected property, forcing prisoners of war into service, denying fair trial rights, unlawful detention, transfer or deportation, and murder of prisoners. Additionally, deliberate attacks on civilians and humanitarian services.
At the same time, this study will be focused to go through all the conventions, treaties and laws, by going one by one and analyzing every detail of it, by giving the pieces of evidence and trying to see what is really happening.
CONCLUSION
This thesis aimed, to analyze the ongoing case of Israel and Palestine, in which the object of this topic was to go through the legal frameworks, by seeing which of those laws have been practiced, and which ones are being violated.
Even so by the higher bodies it is still being discussed if it can be considered as genocide or not, in this study, it has been studied and analyzed a lot of acts, that already met the definition and fulfill the elements of genocide.
As the genocide is one of the most dangerous crimes, there is a need of urgent intervention to stop all this cruelty, since it is a crime against the peace. But it seems as there is a need to wait much longer for this issue to be solved, since as I already mentioned in the above chapters, these decisions stem from politics, and unfortunately the population can no longer do anything, as we already seen this last year, the whole world stand up and protest for supporting Palestine and to stop the Israeli crimes, we witnessed them staying on streets for days, but again there was no change, except the arrest of the protesters, and the genocide continued on the most comfortable way possible.
The reason why this study had two interviews, especially with people who have been in Gaza since the last aggression started, was for us to see and hear the reality from them, after the violations have been analyzed, the interviews have been used to confirm whatever have been said until then. So as it was stated that there is a need for change and a need for standing up against the cruelty, it is also stated by the two Palestinian journalist above, that there is no hope on the international community and international laws anymore.
So the point is to make the changes we can, to raise the voices, and to work hard for strengthening the legal system to ensure that those international laws are applied and operates impartially.