The decay of international tools: Forced displacement and starvation in Gaza
In Gaza today, amid rubble, starvation, and mass graves, the language of international law is being turned on its head. Israel and its allies have unveiled the idea of a “humanitarian city” in Rafah’s Mawasi area, presented as a safe zone where displaced Palestinians might survive in tents and makeshift shelters under the continued Israeli shelling. It is described as a gesture of care, a lifeline in the middle of destruction. Yet this so-called city is not humanitarian at all. It is the latest chapter in a long history of forced displacement, collective punishment, and Zionist expansionist ambition. It is a crime disguised as compassion.
The world has seen this before. Hitler spoke of resettlement and order while orchestrating mass transfer and extermination. Mussolini justified colonial slaughter in Ethiopia with the language of civilisation. In the aftermath of their crimes, humanity swore “never again.” The United Nations was created to prevent the abuse of state power and to secure the rights of people against persecution. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights promised dignity and security to all. The Geneva Conventions outlawed forced transfers, starvation blockades, and collective punishment. International courts were established to ensure that law could restrain power.
Yet in Gaza, this post-war architecture is crumbling before our eyes. Israel, a state admitted to the United Nations in 1949 on the condition that it respect the Charter and allow Palestinian refugees to return, has consistently violated those obligations. Today it is engaged in mass bombardment, siege, ethnic cleansing and forced transfer. By destroying civilian infrastructure and coercing Palestinians into Mawasi, it is breaching Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the forcible transfer of protected persons. By restricting food, medicine, and water, it is violating Article 54 of Additional Protocol I, which outlaws starvation as a method of warfare. By punishing civilians collectively, it is in breach of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. These are not abstract violations. They are war crimes and crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
The argument that Mawasi is a humanitarian solution collapses under legal scrutiny. Humanitarian zones are lawful only if established with consent and under conditions of safety. In Gaza, there is no consent—only coercion under bombardment seeking to erase the Palestinian people. There is no safety—only continued airstrikes, hunger, and disease. Far from fulfilling humanitarian obligations, Israel is using the language of aid as a weapon of control, turning international law into a shield for unlawful policies.
This is not just an Israeli story; it is a story of the international system itself. The UN Security Council, charged under Article 24 of the Charter with maintaining peace and security, has failed to act because of repeated US vetoes. The General Assembly, while able to recommend measures under its “Uniting for Peace” resolution of 1950, can only produce non-binding declarations. The International Court of Justice has already found Israel in violation of international law in its 2004 advisory opinion on the separation wall and has issued provisional measures in 2024 to prevent acts of genocide. Yet those rulings remain unenforced. The International Criminal Court has opened an investigation into Palestine, but progress is paralyzed by political pressure.
The result is a grim confirmation of what critical international lawyers such as B.S. Chimni have long argued: that international law often operates as an instrument of imperial hegemony, legitimizing rather than restraining domination. In Gaza, law is being hollowed out before our eyes. Israel commits violations, the US shields it with vetoes, and UN institutions issue words without consequences. The pattern replicates the failures of the 1930s, when the League of Nations collapsed under the weight of fascist aggression.
The parallels with that earlier era are chilling. Then, the world watched as Hitler and Mussolini redrew borders through violence, persecuted minorities, and starved populations. International institutions failed to restrain them. Only after catastrophic war did humanity draft the Charter, the Universal Declaration, and the Geneva Conventions to prevent a repetition. To accept the Mawasi “humanitarian city” today is to betray that legacy. To accept the Netanyahu-Trump peace proposal is to accept a new mandate of occupation, humiliation and colonial domination. It is to allow international law to be inverted—where starvation becomes aid, displacement becomes protection, and mass destruction becomes order.
The implications extend beyond Palestine. If a state can displace millions, starve a population, and present it as humanitarianism while remaining immune from sanction, then no people anywhere can rely on the protection of international law. The erosion of these norms sets a precedent for every future conflict. What is at stake is not only the survival of Palestinians in Gaza, but the survival of the very idea of a rules-based order.
Israel’s actions must be confronted as crimes, not policies. They must be challenged not only in political forums but in legal ones: at the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, and through the mechanisms of universal jurisdiction. States that claim to uphold international law must take their responsibilities seriously by enforcing peremptory norms—those rules, like the prohibition of genocide and forced displacement, that allow no derogation. Civil society, legal scholars, and ordinary citizens must also resist the co-optation of humanitarian language and demand accountability. Law is not the possession of states alone; it is a common resource for humanity, since 1945.
Palestinians do not seek charity within fenced zones. They seek rights: the right to live with dignity, the right to return to their homes, the right to exist free of siege and displacement. These are rights promised in the very instruments that arose from the ashes of Hitler and Mussolini’s abuses. If those promises mean anything, they must be enforced now.
The Go Towards the South and Seek Shelter in Mawasi “humanitarian city” is not a lifeline but a legal fiction—a laboratory of controlled suffering. To accept it is to normalise ethnic cleansing under the banner of aid. To reject it is to reaffirm the spirit of Nuremberg, the UDHR, and the Geneva Conventions. The choice before the international community is stark. Either the law is enforced, or it is abandoned. Either we uphold “never again,” or we permit its betrayal in Gaza with the current silence at the policy level.
The credibility of the entire international order depends on this decision. If the United Nations and its courts cannot stop a member state from displacing, starving, and annihilating a people while calling it humanitarianism, then the law has been reduced to propaganda. Gaza exposes not only Israel’s crimes, but the decay of a system built to prevent them. The world must decide whether to watch history repeat itself—or to reclaim the law in defence of humanity.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.