War on Gaza: Israel's killing of women and children bodes ill for the world
It has been shocking to see the lack of official condemnation for Israel's slaughter of thousands of Palestinian civilians
Women mourn during a funeral in Rafah, Gaza, on 19 December 2023 (Mohammed Abed/AFP)
Having been a
humanitarian worker for more than two decades, I have long felt
confident in my understanding and analysis of international affairs.
Today, I am no longer so sure, because some of my basic underlying
assumptions have been shattered into millions of pieces over the last
few months.
The first was my firm belief that while wars inevitably get ugly and
civilians are guaranteed to suffer the brunt of any conflict, there
would always be a “red line” that could not be crossed.
That line, in my naive reading of the world, was that the
international community would not tolerate nor allow the large-scale,
systematic and deliberate execution of civilian women, children and men.
After all, 75 years ago, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, women’s rights were recognised as human rights for the first time by consensus - a foundation upon which other international treaties have been built.
During conflicts, women benefit from the same protections as all civilians, with the Geneva Conventions
providing for treatment “without any adverse distinction founded on …
sex”. I had always assumed that if world leaders knew the extent of the
horrors inflicted on civilians, including women and children - if
information reached them in real time - they would swiftly mobilise with
force and outrage. I was wrong.
The sanctioned slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza, of whom 70 percent
are women and children, cannot be seen as anything but the codification
of a trend that has been a long time coming: our official entry into a
space and time that has no due consideration for the lives, dignity and
humanity of women and children. Period.
Had we paid attention over the years, we would have seen the writing
on the wall. The international community has been presented with a
number of tests in recent years, called to rise to the challenge of
upholding women’s and children’s rights in conflict. It failed them
miserably.
When the Taliban regime in Afghanistan successfully managed to banish women from public life,
crushing the dreams of hundreds of thousands of girls who could no
longer pursue higher education, the world was enraged but eventually
succumbed.
In recent decades, further milestones marking tacit international
acceptance of the desecration of women in times of conflict have been
reached in Iraq,
Haiti, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Ukraine, to name
just a few. Tactics have included rape, sexual slavery and attacks on
infants and pregnant women, among others.
Abhorrent reality
Today, as Israel’s
war on Gaza continues, we have seen a very concerning targeting of
women and children, thousands of whom have been killed in air strikes.
This strategy aims to break, subjugate and even destroy the population
or group to which they belong.
Within this abhorrent reality, we have heard the perpetrators justify
their violence. Israel’s blatant incitement of hatred and violence
against Palestinians,
including women and children, has stood out in its degree of
dehumanisation. Members of the Israeli government and society have made
it clear that they consider women and children part of “the enemy” that
should be destroyed.
Disturbingly, there seems to be absolute impunity for crimes
committed against civilians. Perhaps that should not come as a surprise.
We have seen the consequences clearly in recent days in both
Sudan and Palestine, where the international justice system has failed to hold perpetrators accountable.
Make no mistake, what happens in Palestine will not remain confined to Palestine
The proceedings recently brought by South Africa at the International Court of Justice
against Israel over its alleged violations of the Genocide Convention,
and its express reference to the gendered impacts on women, offers an
opportunity to expand our understanding of such crimes, particularly in
the context of settler-colonialism, occupation and apartheid.
But make no mistake, what happens in Palestine will not remain
confined to Palestine. Perpetrators of violence against women and
children have taken note of the absolute impunity with which Israel has
been able to carry out its crimes - day in and day out, in broad
daylight, for all to see, using the most sophisticated weapons.
If the world can watch in real time a full-blown genocide unfolding
against Palestinian civilians, what hopes for attention and justice do
women and children have in other parts of the world that do not even
register on our screens or our collective conscience? Many of these
victims will sadly fade into the background as faceless numbers.
Continuums of violence
The complete disregard for women’s and children’s lives during times
of war cannot be delinked from the violence they are increasingly facing
in times of “peace”. We often speak about continuums of violence, and
in many countries, the rise of femicide, along with moves to control and
exploit women, pose ongoing serious challenges.
Collectively, the way we treat women and children can contribute to
their dehumanisation and to legitimising the onslaughts against them.
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War on Gaza: To be a Palestinian child is a curse, not a blessing
Another casualty of the war against Palestinians in Gaza over the
past several months has been the authority of international law, robbing
victims and human rights advocates of the necessary tools to do our
work. If the entire world watches without taking action against the
perpetrators - and even condemns
those showing solidarity with the victims - what hopes can individual
women have when they are targeted by exploitation or violence?
The credibility of the international human rights system has been
undermined by the double standards of governments, particularly those
that claim to prioritise gender equality, women’s rights, and the rights
of children in conflict. In the case of Palestine, allegations of
sexual violence levied against Hamas have been weaponised by some to
undermine calls for accountability for Israel’s crimes against
Palestinians in Gaza.
With regards to the violence inflicted on women and children in Gaza,
the silence and selectivity of some national and international
organisations has been both deafening and an eye-opener. They find
themselves caught between a rock and a hard place, because this time,
the perpetrators are not the “usual suspects”, nor forces acting in the
name of “regressive” religious, social or cultural norms. The
“automatic” images they expected did not materialise: rather than
showing up as embodiments of “toxic masculinity”, Palestinians in Gaza,
including men and boys, emerged as considerate, tender and affectionate,
supporting the weaker and most vulnerable.
At the same time, it has been a ray of hope to see average civilians
and many grassroots organisations - those who have been outraged by
Israel’s horrific attacks against civilians, including women and
children, in Gaza - protesting fiercely and continuously to stop the
bloodshed and demand accountability. They instinctively understand the
true ramifications of this war, which risks a wholesale weakening of
global protections for civilians in times of conflict.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.