Since October 2023, Gaza has endured an unprecedented intensive military offensive, defined by massive bombardments, the systematic demolition of civilian infrastructure and the imposition of a siege. This war operates in a broader scenario of military impunity that increasingly challenges international law, whereby Israel simultaneously conducts extraterritorial strikes in Syria, Lebanon, Iran, and Yemen with no UN mandates or accountability. Such military impunity signals a dangerous erosion of International Humanitarian Law (IHL), which seeks to limit the impact of armed conflict by protecting civilians and restricting means and methods of warfare. This article considers how Israel’s actions reflect an impunity enabled by a system of power built upon the reproduction of colonial power.
The IHL framework is anchored in the 1949 Geneva Conventions, their Additional Protocols, and Customary International Law. It rests on principles of distinction, proportionality, and precaution, and explicitly prohibits starvation as a method of warfare. Notwithstanding Israel’s political claims over security threats, it is bound by IHL. Yet Gaza has been under blockade for over 17 years and since October 2023, has been the target of Israel’s systemic violation of IHL. These violations are inextricably tied to unlawful acts of starvation, forced displacement, indiscriminate bombardment and amount to what a recent UN report identified as an on-going genocide, which qualify as war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The governing regime of the IHL comprises the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, with the fourth explicitly protecting civilians. Relevant provisions include: Rule 53 (prohibition of starvation), Rule 55 (unimpeded humanitarian relief), and Rule 130 (ban on forced displacement). Israel’s status as an occupying power is established under Article 42 of the 1907 Hague Regulations, given its control over Gaza’s borders, airspace, waters, imports and registry. This occupation status has been affirmed by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) 2004 Advisory Opinion and UN Security Council Resolutions 242, 338, and 2334. Israel’s restriction of food, fuel, water and medicine, constitutes a clear breach of its obligations as an occupying power to ensure essential supplies. UN Special Rapporteurs, in July 2024, determined that these restrictions, coupled with direct attacks on aid convoys and distribution points, amounted to the deliberate use of starvation as a weapon of war, explicitly prohibited by Article 54 of Additional Protocol I and criminalized under Article 8(2)(b)(xxv) of the Rome Statute.
Beyond IHL violations, the systematic imposition of life-destroying conditions engages the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. In 2024, the ICJ ruled that there is a “plausible risk of genocide” in Gaza, ordering provisional measures. This was followed by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry’s historic confirmation in September 2025 that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The Commission found reasonable grounds for four of the five acts listed in Article II of the Genocide Convention including 1) killing members of the targeted group, 2) causing serious bodily and mental harm, 3) deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction, and 4) imposing measures intended to prevent births. The Commission concluded that genocidal intent can be inferred from this systematic conduct.
Since October 2023, Israel’s “total siege” announced by Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has deliberately weaponised hunger. This intent was confirmed by Energy Minister Israel Katz who declared aid would remain blocked until hostages were released. The Rome Statute Article 8(2)(b)(xxv) criminalises starvation of civilians, and UN Security Council Resolution 2417 (2018) reaffirmed this prohibition. Multiple reports, including from UNICEF, and Save the Children have confirmed famine conditions resulting from intentional policy, not collateral shortage, with catastrophic impacts on Gazan children.
Another alarming violation concerns the deliberate targeting of medical and humanitarian infrastructures. In Gaza, over 400 humanitarian workers, mostly UNRWA staff, have been killed. Clearly marked hospitals, ambulances and schools have been struck despite prior notification of their locations. So-called ‘humanitarian zones’ managed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation have proven deadly, with civilians killed during food distribution. These deadly attacks reflect operational strategies intent on dismantling humanitarian ecosystems and health systems in a flagrant violation of IHL Rules 25–32.
Israel’s siege strategy, explicitly announced by officials, evidences intent, escalating violations into war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide under Article 6 of the Rome Statute. Forced displacements toward unsafe “zones” bombed shortly thereafter contravene customary Rule 129 and constitute war crimes (Article 8(2)(a)(vii)) and crimes against humanity (Article 7(1)(d)). The ICJ, in its orders of January and March 2024, found a “plausible risk of genocide” under the 1948 Genocide Convention. Back in October 2024, the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israel’s actions – including starvation, mass displacement, and the targeted destruction of civilian life, including the obliteration of the education system as well as religious and cultural sites – may infer genocidal intent to destroy the Palestinian people. A year later in September 2025, the same commission concluded Israel has and is continuing to commit genocide in Gaza, in what marks the most serious legal qualification under international law.
Israel’s doctrine of mabam (“war between wars”) has normalized extraterritorial strikes in Syria, Lebanon, and Iran, violating Article 2(4) of the UN Charter and sovereignty principles. Operation Rising Lion (June 2025), an aerial campaign against Iran’s nuclear and civilian infrastructure, killed over 1,000 people. Without Security Council authorisation, and in the absence of an imminent threat to Israel, these actions breach Article 51 of the UN Charter. U.S. military support amplified Israel’s capacity while blocking condemnation. Such normalisation of unilateral force erodes collective security and undermines the universality of law.
Despite this overwhelming documentation, Israel’s accountability for its actions is blocked in the UN due to America’s veto power in the Security Council which shields Israel. Furthermore, despite the ICC issuing arrest warrants for Israeli leaders in May 2025, enforcement is hampered by state non-cooperation by . This legal paralysis reflects the structural weakness of international law which lacks autonomous enforcement and its subordination to geopolitical interests.
But it also highlights how the ongoing situation in Gaza is part of a continuum of colonial violence: the Nakba of 1948, the occupation of 1967, and the fragmentation of Palestinian life today. UN experts, including Michael Lynk, characterise Israeli actions as those of an apartheid regime. Historical analogies are plentiful, for instance France’s suspension of law in Algeria (1954–1962), or U.S. “preventive” destruction in Iraq after 2003. In each of these situations, law is either suspended or instrumentalized to justify domination. The Gaza war reveals a grave crisis of international law. The systematic violation of jus in bello (conduct of hostilities) and jus ad bellum (legality of the use of force), as evidenced through the mass killing and starvation, forced displacement, and attacks on humanitarian infrastructures within Gaza, are direct attacks to the principles protected by the Geneva Conventions, Additional Protocol I, and the Rome Statute. This coloniality of impunity leaves the world in a situation whereby the UN has concluded Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide, yet enforcement mechanisms remain paralysed though geopolitical shields. The injustice of the Palestinian situation exposes the structure of this coloniality of impunity: a so-called legal order which imagines universality but applies it only selectively and suspends its protection for the most vulnerable.
Image by Hosny Salah from Pixabay
