Is Israel Really Indifferent to Civilian Deaths?

Eighty countries claim that Israel is indifferent to civilian deaths: “Delegation of 80 UN members sign declaration saying Gaza faces the ‘worst humanitarian crisis,'” Jerusalem Post, May 23, 2025:

The countries also reaffirmed that “accountability for violations is essential,” adding “Alleged violations of IHL and alleged human rights violations and abuses in armed conflict must systematically be met with credible investigations and perpetrators must be held accountable. Impunity cannot be the norm. Impunity is not just a failure of justice—it is a license for repetition.”

Have these countries suggested that Hamas be investigated, not just for the atrocities it committed on October 7, 2023, but for its degrading and cruel treatment, including rape and murder, of the Israeli hostages who were kidnapped on that date? No, they have not. Nor have these countries yet called for an investigation into the torture and murder by Hamas of Gazan civilians who have dared to join demonstrations against Hamas. Why not?

Hamas said it welcomed the joint statement, saying that it “confirms the expanding international rejection of the ongoing crimes of genocide and ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the fascist occupation government in the Gaza Strip.”

The situation in Gaza is moving “in the direction of ethnic cleansing and genocide,” the rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) said in a statement on Friday, calling for Israel to allow “independent, neutral, and unhindered access by humanitarian organisations,” to Gaza in order to distribute aid….

The terror group Hamas, possibility the worst violator of human rights in the world today, tells the world that there is “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” in the Gaza Strip. There is neither. Nine million dropped leaflets, fifteen million text messages, and sixteen million robocalls by the IDF to warn civilians away from danger show how idiotic the charge of “genocide” is. And so does the fact that out of a population of 2.2 million Gazans, the total combat-related deaths of civilians is 15,000, far fewer than 1% of Gaza’s total population. Genocide? What genocide? And the same goes for the charge, equally preposterous, of “ethnic cleansing” in Gaza.

“So far … none of the supplies have been able to leave the Kerem Shalom loading area,” said UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric on Wednesday, adding that it was because Israeli authorities had only allowed access within Gaza “that we felt was insecure” and where looting was likely due to the prolonged deprivation.

It is not Israel’s fault if so much of the aid now being sent into the Strip is being looted — you can see the looters on the nightly news — by Gazans who, in the past, have seen so much of that humanitarian aid stolen by Hamas before it could get to them. It is only when Israel’s plan to distribute the aid under armed guard, supplied by American contractors as well as the IDF, goes into effect that Gazans will feel reassured enough to stop looting.

Look, the Israelis have turned on the tap of humanitarian aid. They had a perfect right to withhold it — see, supra, Article 23 of the Fourth Geneva Convention — but decided that the optics were bad, the charges against them were reaching a fever pitch, and to let in aid made sense. Prime Minister Netanyahu said the decision to renew aid was made for “practical and diplomatic reasons.” Several days ago, seven trucks entered Gaza. The next day, it was 107. And the numbers will continually increase, so that there is no longer malnutrition — there never was “famine” — in the Strip. But don’t worry — a world consumed with anti-Israel animus will continue to charge Israel with “deliberate starvation of the Gazans.”

Meanwhile, the war against Hamas will continue, mainly in the north of the Strip, while civilians will continue to be directed to safe zones in the south such as Al-Mawasi. The humanitarian aid will be guarded, the theft by Hamas will stop, and so will the looting by civilians who will be reassured by the presence of guards where the aid is distributed.

But none of this will make a difference for those who have convinced themselves that tiny Israel is a colonial-settler ethnic-cleansing genocidal state that ought to be forced by the “international community” to be squeezed back within the 1949 armistice lines, leaving the Jewish state with a nine-mile-wide waist from Qalqilya to the sea. It would also have to surrender control of Judea and Samaria, where Jewish history was made over the past 3500 years, and give up the Jordan Valley, so critical to its defense against invaders from the east. That “Palestinian” state, given the jihadist imperative, will inevitably be used as a staging area for a future pan-Arab attack on the Jewish state.