International
Humanitarian Law was trashed in 2002 in the Middle East, specifically
in the Palestinian Israeli conflict. On the one hand the Israeli
army escalated its breaches of international law by means of numerous
violations. The most obvious ones include: extrajudicial killings,
collective punishments (in the form of demolition of homes of families
of those carrying out anti Israeli attacks), using human shields,
indiscriminate attacks against civilians and a continuation of settlement
activities.
The
latter is a violation of the fourth Geneva Convention which forbids
occupying powers from transferring its population to occupied areas.
Other acts included mass restrictions on the movement of Palestinians,
deportations and internal displacements and pillage of Palestinian
property during the incursions into Palestinian areas, most prominently
in April 2002.
Palestinians
also were guilty of war crimes by their indiscriminate attacks on
Israeli civilians. The attacks, most of them in the form of suicide
bombings, were clearly intended to cause harm and injury to civilian
populations.
Both
Palestinians and Israelis were also guilty of the violation of Article
32 of the fourth Geneva Convention which clearly forbids retaliation.
Both societies justified their violent actions against the other
by saying that it was in retaliation against an act carried out
by the other on their people.
Daoud
Kuttab is director of the Institute of Modern Media at Al-Quds
University in Ramallah.
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