Talk of Israeli reoccupation of Gaza raises questions of legal obligations and responsibilities

An Israeli tank crossing the border into the Gaza strip amid ongoing battles between Israeli forces and Hamas. Gaza’s possible return to Israeli control raises questions about what responsibilities occupying power would have. (AFP)
Short Url
Updated 19 November 2023
Follow

Talk of Israeli reoccupation of Gaza raises questions of legal obligations and responsibilities

  • More than a month since it launched military offensive, Israel seen to be lacking coherent postwar policy
  • Under international humanitarian law, an occupying power is obligated to intervene in civilian governance

LONDON: Israel has left open the prospect of its reoccupation of the Gaza Strip after the anticipated defeat of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, claiming it will be responsible for finding a civilian administration to take over the Palestinian territory.

The prospect of a return to direct Israeli administration, however, raises a host of questions about what obligations and responsibilities it would have as an occupying power, given Gaza’s unique characteristics in relation to international law.

More than a month since the fighting began, Israel still lacks a coherent post-conflict policy for Gaza, with the government facing down far-right politicians’ provocations for Palestinian expulsion while flip-flopping on its own intentions.

Having early in the conflict told ABC News that Israel would have “overall security responsibility … for an indefinite period” over the Palestinian enclave, a strong reproach from the US caused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to flip, telling Fox News just days later that occupation was, in fact, not the intention.

Rather, he said the plan was to “demilitarize, deradicalize, and rebuild” the Gaza Strip while holding responsibility for finding a “civilian government” to manage the territory, leaving the door ajar for an interim occupation.

Certainly, this is where experts see the situation heading.




Palestinians with their belongings flee to safer areas in Gaza City after Israeli air strikes, on October 13, 2023. (AFP)

Writing in The Conversation earlier this month, Durham University peace and security studies lecturer Rob Geist Pinfold said he expects a replay of Israel’s previous “diverse occupations to date.”

In practice, he said, Israel would likely move to “indefinitely” occupy parts of Gaza and seek “to eschew responsibility for civilian governance elsewhere in the territory.”

While it may seek to avoid responsibility, under international humanitarian law, Israel could nonetheless find itself obligated to intervene in civilian governance.

Eugenie Duss, a research fellow at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, told Arab News the law of belligerent occupation is designed to allow civilians to continue their lives “as normally as possible.”

As such, she said, the existing local system must ensure provision of food, health services, hygiene, spiritual assistance and education.

“However, if the needs of the local population cannot be thus satisfied, the occupying power must itself provide goods and services while respecting local traditions and sensitivities,” she said.

“If it still cannot satisfy the needs of the local population, the occupying power must agree to and facilitate external humanitarian assistance.”

Occupation, though, is nothing new for Gaza.




sraeli soldiers shoot at stone-throwing Palestinian teenagers in Khan Younes in the Gaza Strip during clashes in October 2000. (File Photo/AFP)

Israel may have dismantled and removed its 21 settlements from the Strip in 2005 as part of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s policy of disengagement, but there is something approaching consensus within the international legal community that the government retained effective control over the territory as an occupying force.

Duss said this “majority view” stems largely from Israel having retained control over Gaza’s airspace, territorial waters, land border crossings, supply of civilian infrastructure, and key governmental functions such as management of the Palestinian population registry.

When pushed on this, Israel has long maintained that Gaza was not, and is not, occupied. As justification, it says the territory had not been recognized as a “high contracting party” vested with rights and obligations under international law at the time of its initial occupation in 1967.

“The International Court of Justice rejected Israel’s argument, stating that it was sufficient that Jordan and Israel (the ICJ only had to address the West Bank’s status) were, at the relevant time, parties to the conventions and engaged in an armed conflict that led to the West Bank’s occupation,” said Duss.

“It is therefore irrelevant whether occupied territory belongs to another state.”

Concurring, Emily Crawford, professor of international law at the University of Sydney, told Arab News that recognition of Palestinian statehood was immaterial. Indeed, of the 193 UN states, 138 have acknowledged Palestine as a sovereign state.

For Crawford, Palestinian accession to the Geneva and Hague conventions between 2014 and 2018 provided it with protections under international humanitarian law and rendered Israel obligated to occupy Palestinian territory per the conventions’ edicts.

Those rules are “pretty expansive and cover some fundamental principles,” said Duss.

INNUMBERS

* 12,000+ Palestinians killed in Gaza in Israeli military offensive, according to Palestinian health authorities.

* 1,200 Israelis and foreigners killed in Hamas attack on Oct. 7, according to Israeli authorities.

* 230+ People held hostage by Hamas and allied groups, according to Israeli authorities.

“Protected persons may neither be forcibly transferred or otherwise deported out of the occupied territory nor forcibly transferred within the occupied territory.

“Also, the occupying power may not transfer parts of its own population, even if they consent, into the occupied territory.”

Furthermore, protected persons in an occupied territory may only be deprived of their liberty as civilian internees for imperative security reasons, in view of a criminal trial or to serve a criminal sentence.

And for those who are detained, the law provides guarantees that they are to be treated humanely and within their own territory.

Local legislation remains applicable and local institutions must be allowed to continue to function, said Duss, with the occupying power only allowed to amend local laws in four scenarios: to protect the security of its forces; to comply with international humanitarian law; to respect its obligations under international human rights law; and where explicitly authorized by the UN Security Council.

Even private property has protections under the law. This includes property dedicated to religion, charity, education, the arts, and sciences, none of which may be confiscated, although Duss said it may be requisitioned for the needs of the occupying army.




A Palestinian woman shouts as her children search 15 April 2001 through the remains of their home destroyed by the Israeli army in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. (AFP/File Photo)

“It may be argued that the concept of property also covers both tangible and intangible interests,” said Duss.

“The destruction of private property is only permitted when rendered absolutely necessary by military operations. Movable enemy public property, including cash, that can be used for military operations may be seized as war booty.”

One question left lingering, though, concerns whether an occupation is in itself legal.

Both Crawford and Duss note that an occupation’s legality is essentially dependent upon whether it has received authorization from the UN Security Council.

If so, then an occupation can be deemed legal. As an example, Crawford noted the interim occupation of Kosovo that ran from 1999 to its declaration of independence in 2008.

Given there is widespread support for the claim that Israel has in fact occupied Palestine for more than 50 years, one is left questioning the effectiveness of this body of law.

“Is the law fit for purpose? Sort of — but only in situations where it is not a prolonged occupation,” said Crawford.

“The entirety of the law of occupation is geared toward occupation being temporary, so in situations where it is less than temporary … the system starts to strain.”

As with a lot of things in international law, she said, policing behavior is dependent upon how much the state in question plans to follow the rules. Nonetheless, she stressed there are mechanisms that third parties can use to force the occupier’s hand.




“The lesson we are taking away from the Gaza crisis is the need to go back to the two-state solution,” said Anwar Gargash, foreign policy adviser to the UAE president. (AFP)

“There is always the option of non-judicial enforcement mechanisms, like sanctions, embargoes, diplomatic pressure, as well as postbellum criminal trials or taking the question to the International Court of Justice,” said Crawford.

Many non-legal factors also contribute to respect of international humanitarian law, including routine, military interest in discipline and efficiency, public opinion, ethical and religious factors, positive reciprocity, and a desire to re-establish a durable peace, said Duss.

While the media “all too often” spotlights violations, the reality is that international humanitarian law is more often than not “respected rather than violated,” she added.

Some may scoff at the latter suggestion, with the court in the past having proved powerless, particularly if one looks at its 1986 Contras entanglement with the US, which, when ruled against, simply denied the court’s jurisdiction.

But what makes things different in the case of Gaza is the “unprecedented public attention being focused on it,” said Crawford.

“For the first time in my memory, we’re seeing widespread protests not just from Palestinian groups but from concerned Israelis and Jewish groups both in and outside Israel regarding what is taking place,” she said.

“There seems a huge groundswell against Netanyahu and the response by the Israeli government, which has been described as disproportionate, and perhaps driven by other motives than self-defense.

“In time, that may prove to be a powerful force in controlling and even ending what is taking place.”


Baghdad and Irbil agree to resume Kurdish oil exports

Updated 17 July 2025
Follow

Baghdad and Irbil agree to resume Kurdish oil exports

  • The quantity should be no less than 230,000 barrels per day, and Baghdad will pay an advance of $16 per barrel
  • Lucrative oil exports have been a major point of tension between Baghdad and Irbil

BAGHDAD: The Iraqi government announced Thursday an agreement to resume crude exports from the autonomous Kurdistan region after a more than two-year halt and amid drone attacks on oil fields.
Lucrative oil exports have been a major point of tension between Baghdad and Irbil, with a key pipeline through Turkiye shut since 2023 over legal disputes and technical issues.
The Kurdistan regional government shall “immediately begin delivering all oil produced” in the region’s field to Baghdad’s State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO) “for export,” the Iraqi government said in a statement.
The quantity should be no less than 230,000 barrels per day, and Baghdad will pay an advance of $16 a barrel.
The Kurdistan regional government said in a statement it “welcomes” the deal, and hoped all agreements would be respected.
Oil exports were previously independently sold by the Kurdistan region, without the approval or oversight of the central administration in Baghdad, through the port of Ceyhan in Turkiye.
But the region’s official oil exports have been frozen since March 2023 when the arbitration tribunal of the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris ruled oil exports by the regional government illegal and said that Baghdad had the exclusive right to market all Iraqi oil.
The decision halted the region’s independent exports by pipeline via Turkiye.
Ever since, the federal and regional governments have been haggling over the production and transport costs payable to the region and its commercial partners among other financial issues.
The latest agreement should also solve the long-standing issue of unpaid salaries for civil servants in Kurdistan, which has been tied to the tension over oil.
The federal finance ministry will pay salaries for May once SOMO confirms it has received the oil at the Ceyhan port.
The regional government said it hoped that the issue of salaries would be treated separately from any disputes.
The deal comes after a tense few weeks in Kurdistan, which has seen a spate of unclaimed drone attacks mostly against oil fields, with the latest strike hitting a site operated by a Norwegian firm on Thursday morning — the second attack in two days on the same site.
There has been no claim of responsibility for any of the past week’s attacks, and Baghdad has promised an investigation to identify the culprits.
 


US says it opposed Israeli strikes in Syria

Updated 17 July 2025
Follow

US says it opposed Israeli strikes in Syria

  • State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce says US is engaging diplomatically with Israel and Syria 'at the highest levels'

WASHINGTON: The United States said Thursday that it opposed its ally Israel’s strikes in Syria, a day after Washington helped broker a deal to end violence.
“The United States did not support recent Israeli strikes,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters.
“We are engaging diplomatically with Israel and Syria at the highest levels, both to address the present crisis and reach a lasting agreement between the two sovereign states,” she said.
She declined to say if the United States had expressed its displeasure with Israel or whether it would oppose future strikes on Syria.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio voiced concern when asked about the Israeli strikes, which included attacking the defense ministry in Damascus.
He later issued a statement that did not directly address the Israeli strikes but voiced broader concern about the violence.
Israel said it was intervening on behalf of the Druze community after communal clashes.
Israel has repeatedly been striking Syria, a historic adversary, since Islamist fighters in December overthrew Iranian-allied leader Bashar Assad.
US President Donald Trump, who spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday by telephone, has sided with Turkiye and Saudi Arabia in seeking a better relationship with Syria under its new leader, former guerrilla Ahmed Al-Sharaa.


Israel has refused to renew visas for heads of at least 3 UN agencies in Gaza

Updated 17 July 2025
Follow

Israel has refused to renew visas for heads of at least 3 UN agencies in Gaza

UNITED NATIONS: Israel has refused to renew visas for the heads of at least three United Nations agencies in Gaza, which the UN humanitarian chief blames on their work trying to protect Palestinian civilians in the war-torn territory.
Visas for the local leaders of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, known as OCHA; the human rights agency OHCHR; and the agency supporting Palestinians in Gaza, UNRWA, have not been renewed in recent months, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric confirmed.
Tom Fletcher, UN head of humanitarian affairs, told the Security Council on Wednesday that the UN’s humanitarian mandate is not just to provide aid to civilians in need and report what its staff witnesses but to advocate for international humanitarian law.
“Each time we report on what we see, we face threats of further reduced access to the civilians we are trying to serve,” he said. “Nowhere today is the tension between our advocacy mandate and delivering aid greater than in Gaza.”
Fletcher said, “Visas are not renewed or reduced in duration by Israel, explicitly in response to our work on protection of civilians.”
Israel’s UN mission did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment about the visa renewals. Israel has been sharply critical of UNRWA, even before Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, surprise attack in southern Israel — accusing the agency of colluding with Hamas and teaching anti-Israel hatred, which UNRWA vehemently denies.
Since then, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right allies have claimed that UNRWA is deeply infiltrated by Hamas and that its staffers participated in the Oct. 7 attacks. Israel formally banned UNRWA from operating in its territory, and its commissioner general, Philippe Lazzarini, has been barred from entering Gaza.
At Wednesday’s Security Council meeting, Fletcher called conditions in Gaza “beyond vocabulary,” with food running out and Palestinians seeking something to eat being shot. He said Israel, the occupying power in Gaza, is failing in its obligation under the Geneva Conventions to provide for civilian needs.
In response, Israel accused OCHA of continuing “to abandon all semblance of neutrality and impartiality in its statements and actions, despite claiming otherwise.”
Reut Shapir Ben-Naftaly, political coordinator at Israel’s UN Mission, told the Security Council that some of its 15 members seem to forget that the Oct. 7 attacks killed about 1,200 people and some 250 were taken hostage, triggering the war in Gaza and the humanitarian situation.
“Instead, we’re presented with a narrative that forces Israel into a defendant’s chair, while Hamas, the very cause of this conflict and the very instigator of suffering of Israelis but also of Palestinians, goes unmentioned, unchallenged and immune to condemnation,” she said.
More than 58,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants but says more than half were women and children.
Ravina Shamdasani, chief spokesperson for the Geneva-based UN human rights body, confirmed Thursday that the head of its office in the occupied Palestinian territories “has been denied entry into Gaza.”
“The last time he tried to enter was in February 2025 and since then, he has been denied entry,” she told The Associated Press. “Unfortunately, this is not unusual. Aid workers, UN staff, journalists and others have been denied access to Gaza.”
Israel has accused a UN-backed commission probing abuses in Gaza, whose three members just resigned, and the Human Rights Council’s independent investigator Francesca Albanese of antisemitism.
Albanese has accused Israel of “genocide” in Gaza, which it and its ally the US vehemently deny. The Trump administration recently issued sanctions against Albanese.
Fletcher, the UN humanitarian chief, told the Security Council that Israel also is not granting “security clearances” for staff to enter Gaza to continue their work and that UN humanitarian partners are increasingly being denied entry as well.
He noted that “56 percent of the entries denied into Gaza in 2025 were for emergency medical teams — frontline responders who save lives.”
“Hundreds of aid workers have been killed; and those who continue to work endure hunger, danger and loss, like everyone else in the Gaza Strip,” Fletcher said.


Mothers of Israeli soldiers fighting on all fronts to stop Gaza war

Updated 17 July 2025
Follow

Mothers of Israeli soldiers fighting on all fronts to stop Gaza war

  • Saidof said her movement brings together some 70,000 mothers of active-duty troops, conscripts and reservists
  • Mothers on the Front’s foremost demand is that everyone serve in the army, as mandated by Israeli law

HOD HASHARON, Israel: “We mothers of soldiers haven’t slept in two years,” said Ayelet-Hashakhar Saidof, a lawyer who founded the Mothers on the Front movement in Israel.

A 48-year-old mother of three, including a soldier currently serving in the army, Saidof said her movement brings together some 70,000 mothers of active-duty troops, conscripts and reservists to demand, among other things, a halt to the fighting in Gaza.

Her anxiety was familiar to other mothers of soldiers interviewed by AFP who have refocused their lives on stopping a war that many Israelis increasingly feel has run its course, even as a ceasefire deal remains elusive.

In addition to urging an end to the fighting in Gaza, Mothers on the Front’s foremost demand is that everyone serve in the army, as mandated by Israeli law.

That request is particularly urgent today, as draft exemptions for ultra-Orthodox Jews have become a wedge issue in Israeli society, with the military facing manpower shortages in its 21-month fight against the militant group Hamas.

As the war drags on, Saidof has become increasingly concerned that Israel will be confronted with long-term ramifications from the conflict.

“We’re seeing 20-year-olds completely lost, broken, exhausted, coming back with psychological wounds that society doesn’t know how to treat,” she said.

“They are ticking time bombs on our streets, prone to violence, to outbursts of rage.”

According to the army, 23 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza over the past month, and more than 450 have died since the start of the ground offensive in October 2023.

Saidof accuses the army of neglecting soldiers’ lives.

Combat on the ground has largely dried up, she said, and soldiers were now being killed by improvised explosives and “operational mistakes.”

“So where are they sending them? Just to be targets in a shooting range?” she asked bitterly.

Over the past months, Saidof has conducted her campaign in the halls of Israel’s parliament, but also in the streets.

Opening the boot of her car, she proudly displayed a stockpile of posters, placards and megaphones for protests.
“Soldiers fall while the government stands,” one poster read.

Her campaign does not have a political slant, she maintained.

“The mothers of 2025 are strong. We’re not afraid of anyone, not the generals, not the rabbis, not the politicians,” she said defiantly.

Saidof’s group is not the only mothers’ movement calling for an end to the war.
Outside the home of military chief of staff Eyal Zamir, four women gathered one morning to demand better protection for their children.

“We’re here to ask him to safeguard the lives of our sons who we’ve entrusted to him,” said Rotem-Sivan Hoffman, a doctor and mother of two soldiers.

“To take responsibility for military decisions and to not let politicians use our children’s lives for political purposes that put them in unnecessary danger” .

Hoffman is one of the leaders of the Ima Era, or “Awakened Mother,” movement, whose motto is: “We don’t have children for wars without goals.”

“For many months now, we’ve felt this war should have ended,” she told AFP.

“After months of fighting and progress that wasn’t translated into a diplomatic process, nothing has been done to stop the war, bring back the hostages, withdraw the army from Gaza or reach any agreements.”

Beside her stood Orit Wolkin, also the mother of a soldier deployed to the front, whose anxiety was visible.

“Whenever he comes back from combat, of course that’s something I look forward to eagerly, something I’m happy about, but my heart holds back from feeling full joy because I know he’ll be going back” to the front, she said.

At the funeral of Yuli Faktor, a 19-year-old soldier killed in Gaza the previous day alongside two comrades, his mother stood sobbing before her son’s coffin draped in the Israeli flag.

She spoke to him in Russian for the last time before his burial.

“I want to hold you. I miss you. Forgive me, please. Watch over us, wherever you are.”


Foreign ministers of Middle Eastern countries affirm support for Syria’s security, stability, and sovereignty

The Kingdom’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan. (File/SPA)
Updated 47 min 3 sec ago
Follow

Foreign ministers of Middle Eastern countries affirm support for Syria’s security, stability, and sovereignty

  • The foreign ministers welcomed Syrian president’s commitment to hold accountable all those responsible for violations against Syrian citizens in Sweida Governorate

RIYADH: The foreign ministers of Middle Eastern countries, including Saudi Arabia, affirmed their support for Syria’s security, unity, stability, and sovereignty in a joint statement issued on Thursday.

The Kingdom’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan and his counterparts from Jordan, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq, Oman, Kuwait, Lebanon, Egypt, and Turkiye held intensive talks on developments in Syria during the last two days.

The talks aimed to come up with a unified position and coordinate efforts to support the Syrian government in its efforts to rebuild Syria on foundations that guarantee its security, stability, unity, sovereignty, and the rights of all its citizens.

Prince Faisal spoke to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday to emphasize the importance of respecting Syria’s independence and sovereignty, the need to halt Israeli aggression on Syrian territory, and the importance of uniting efforts to support the Syrian government’s measures to establish security and uphold the rule of law across its entire territory.

The foreign ministers welcomed the ceasefire reached to end the crisis in Sweida Governorate, and stressed the necessity of its implementation to protect Syria, its unity, and its citizens, prevent the shedding of Syrian blood, and ensure the protection of civilians and the rule of law.

They also welcomed Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa’s commitment to hold accountable all those responsible for violations against Syrian citizens in Sweida Governorate.

The ministers expressed support for all efforts to establish security and the rule of law in Sweida Governorate and throughout Syria.

They also condemned and rejected repeated Israeli attacks on Syria and said they are flagrant violations of international law and a blatant assault on Syria’s sovereignty which destabilizes its security, stability, and unity and undermines the government’s efforts to build a new Syria that achieves the aspirations and choices of its people.

They added that Syria’s security and stability are a pillar of regional security and stability and a shared priority.

The ministers called on the international community to support the Syrian government in its reconstruction process and called on the Security Council to assume its legal and moral responsibilities to ensure Israel’s full withdrawal from occupied Syrian territories, the cessation of all Israeli hostilities against Syria and interference in its affairs, and the implementation of Resolution 2766 and the 1974 Disengagement Agreement.