pc28����

In addition, the Israeli security cabinet recently decided that unless all the hostages are released in two weeks, it will launch a major new offensive in Gaza. It also stated its intention to displace the entire Gazan population into an area in the south that occupies only 20 per cent of the entire Strip.

Amid all this activity, the Office of the UN Human Rights Commission has just released a damning report on Israel’s practices, describing its “relentless destruction of life in Gaza through attacks by land, air and sea” and the withholding of essential humanitarian aid as “grave international crimes.”

In this context, it is also important to recall that the May 2024 interim decision of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which is currently examining allegations of genocide committed by Israel, ordered the government to ensure the “unimpeded access to humanitarian assistance” to Gazans.

The UN experts who wrote the human rights report called on states “to transcend rhetoric and take enforceable action to immediately end the carnage and ensure accountability for perpetrators.”

Israel slammed the report as biased, saying it includes “baseless” claims against Israel. The country’s ambassador to the UN said the report should have focused on Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and the Israeli hostages still held in Gaza. (The same UN panel has rightly condemned Hamas on both counts.)

Within Israel, polls show that some 70 per cent of Israelis favour a ceasefire to secure the release of the remaining hostages. A similar number want Prime Minister Netanyahu to resign and call elections. Many Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reservists, an essential element of Israel’s fighting force, are expressing reluctance to return to duty after 19 months of war, Israel’s longest ever.

Moreover, what is particularly disturbing is that most analysts in Israel and abroad agree that the Cabinet’s recent decisions to end the ceasefire and prolong the war are based on political rather than military considerations. On the one hand, the prime minister wants to postpone elections that polls suggest he would lose, prevent the formation of a state commission of inquiry into his responsibility for the massacre on Oct. 7, and delay or terminate his ongoing trial on three criminal charges. On the other hand, his far-right ministers, who recently have spoken about deporting Gazans voluntarily or otherwise from the Strip, want to take advantage of the war and the forceable displacement of Gazans to the south, in order to begin to resettle Gaza.

The human rights report asks whether Member States of the UN will “live up to their obligations and intervene to stop the slaughter, hunger, and disease.” Sadly, the new Mark Carney-led Canadian government has been mostly silent on the subject as have too many other Western states. While historically strongly supportive of Israel’s right to exist in peace and its right to self-defence, Liberal governments have also traditionally supported the rule of law, human rights and respect for international humanitarian law.

It’s time for Canada to recognize the abuses taking place in Gaza and the West Bank, both illegally occupied territory, and to call on the Israeli government to begin respecting international law.