By David Singer ——Bio and Archives--July 13, 2014
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"There is simply no legal justification for launching rockets at populated areas."Human Rights Watch makes it clear that under international humanitarian law, or the laws of war, civilians and civilian structures may not be subject to deliberate attacks or attacks that do not discriminate between civilians and military targets. Anyone who commits serious laws-of-war violations intentionally or recklessly is responsible for war crimes. Locating rocket launchers within or near densely populated civilian areas is also a war crime. There is abundant evidence that this is occurring in Gaza right now. Belligerents are also prohibited from using civilians to shield military objectives or operations from attack. "Shielding" refers to purposefully using the presence of civilians to render military forces or areas immune from attack. This too is occurring in Gaza under the watchful gaze of Abbas's Government. Abbas as head of the ruling Government in Gaza, is obligated to uphold the laws of war and should appropriately punish those responsible for these serious violations. Abbas is making no effort to restrain or end the commission of these war crimes. There appears to have been no effort by Abbas or the security or police forces that he now controls in Gaza to take action to prevent the further commission of these war crimes. Abbas has not attempted to travel to Gaza to take control of the rapidly deteriorating position Gaza finds itself in as rockets continue to be fired indiscriminately into Israeli population centres with what appears to be ever increasing intensity--inviting retaliation by Israel to defend its civilian population under article 51 of the United Nations Charter. Abbas was clearly aware of the danger of provoking such an Israeli response to rockets being launched into Israel - as this report on 6 July made clear:
"Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas spoke to the chairman of the Hamas political bureau, Khaled Meshaal, on Sunday, and asked him to calm the situation in Gaza. Abbas asked Meshaal to avoid escalation of the situation, which would give Israel an excuse to launch an operation in Gaza. Meshaal reportedly told Abbas that he would not act to stop the rocket fire unless the PA met its financial obligations to Hamas, including paying the overdue salaries of several Hamas officials. The PA is currently embroiled in a conflict over wages with Hamas; some 40,000 Hamas employees are not being paid backlogged wages by the newly established unity government, even while the PA's 70,000 employees in Gaza continue to be paid."Abbas's plea was made after Hamas ignored Israel's ultimatum - made on 3 July - which called for the rocket fire to stop within 48 hours or face war. At least fifteen rockets were fired on Israel in a 12-hour period on 5 July including two at Be'er Sheva. Abbas clearly exercises control over the public servants in Gaza. He must immediately assert control over those presently in Gaza committing these heinous war crimes. Abbas's inaction in using his security and police forces to forcibly intervene to:
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David Singer is an Australian Lawyer, a Foundation Member of the International Analyst Network and Convenor of Jordan is Palestine International—an organization calling for sovereignty of the West Bank and Gaza to be allocated between Israel and Jordan as the two successor States to the Mandate for Palestine. Previous articles written by him can be found at: jordanispalestine.blogspot.com