There Is No ‘Genocide’ Against Infrastructure

South Africa’s Case For ‘Genocide’

South Africa put forward the charge of ‘genocidal conduct‘ against Israel for its actions in Gaza since October 8, 2023. The reported figure of over 23,000 deaths, over one percent of the population of Gaza, is claimed to show a deliberate intent to wipe out all Arabs in the region. The use of heavy 2,000-pound bombs in civilians neighborhoods is alleged to show a complete disregard for non-combatants as well as a disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force.

Lawyers prosecuting Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) quoted members of the Israeli parliament after the October 7 attack in which they said they wanted to flatten Gaza, encourage a ‘voluntary emigration’ of Arabs from the region, and treat them like the biblical ‘Amalek’, a people for which Jews are commanded to wipe out completely. Counsel argued that comments from leaders shows the government’s official policy for the annihilation of the region’s Arabs.

The United Nations’ International Criminal Court has disallowed Israel from bringing any evidence of the Gazans’ October 7 massacre and brutalization of Israelis, mostly civilians. It contends that even if Hamas committed crimes against humanity, Israel must still adhere to basic rules of war.

The Case Against ‘Genocide’

Genocide involves the deliberate mass killing of an ethnic group or particular nation with the goal of annihilation or ethnically cleansing them.

It is bizarre to bring the charge against Israel based on the situation before even considering the prosecution of the war.

Israel’s attack on Gaza was both reactive and defensive. It had a ceasefire agreement with Hamas which rules Gaza, which Hamas broke with its invasion and sadistic slaughter.
Hamas leaders have pledged to commit the October 7 massacre “again and again.” Israel is compelled to not only bring the estimated 3,000 Gazan perpetrators of the October 7 massacre to justice, as well as the leaders who commanded and supported the operation, but to prevent the atrocities from happening again.
Hamas continues to fire at Israel. Hamas and various factions of this Gaza army continue to fire rockets and wage war against Israel. This is not a situation of a military aggressively hunting civilians but an active battlefield.
Hamas fires from civilian neighborhoods. The battlefield is the neighborhoods of Gaza from which Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other factions of the Gazan army shoot rockets and attack Israel.
Civilian infrastructure is part of the Gazan war effort. The Gazan army and infrastructure is embedded in civilian homes, hospitals, mosques and schools. Arms are stored and tunnel-openings begin in these locations, and are therefore part-and-parcel of the Gazan war effort.
The core Gazan army infrastructure is beneath civilian neighborhoods. The Gazan army runs the majority of its operations below ground, underneath civilian neighborhoods.
The Gazan army doesn’t wear uniforms. Many Palestinian fighters do not wear uniforms to clearly distinguish themselves from civilians, blurring the battlefield between military and civilians.
Israel unilaterally left Gaza completely in 2005. Israel does not covet the land and wanted the region to be a peaceful neighbor where Arabs would have complete self-determination. Instead, Gaza became a terrorist-ruled strip which has waged repeated wars against Israel targeting civilians.
Israel is attempting to save hundreds of hostages. Hamas and other Gazans took 240 hostages, mostly civilians into Gaza, many of whom are children, elderly and infirm. Saving them requires quick action.
The United Nations made no effort to prioritize Israeli hostages. The UN made clear that it would prioritize Gazans from the first day of the war, and would not help Israel in checking on the hostages well being or securing their release, further necessitating immediate and unilateral actions.

Those are just the basic facts which set the scene for which Israel has to prosecute a difficult war. Even with such impossible backdrop, Israel has attempted to avoid the loss of civilian lives.

Millions of text messages sent to Palestinian Arab civilians to get out of harm’s way
Leaflets dropped over neighborhoods to make sure civilians got the message to leave active battlefields.
‘Safe zones’ and escape corridors created for civilians to flee hot spots.
Israel telegraphed its intentions of where it was prosecuting the battle – starting in northern Gaza – to allow civilians to leave, putting its own Israeli soldiers at risk.
The world begged Israel to not launch a ground invasion of Gaza and so relied on air power to start the retaliation against known military targets. It is those aerial assaults that the world now criticizes.

While the world may appreciate the need to dismantle Hamas and the impossible task facing Israel of fighting an enemy which is deeply embedded with civilians, it doesn’t really care. It has no proposals or gameplans to prosecute the war any better, other than demand Israel do so.

*A view of the rubble of buildings hit by an Israeli airstrike, in Gaza City, October 10, 2023. (Fatima Shbair/AP)*

In regard to Israeli leaders’ commentary that Gazans are like Amalek, a metaphor is not a call to action. Amalek was called out because they attacked the weakest Jews as they left Egypt, just as Hamas and its horde brutally butchered women, children and elderly in 2023. Other Israeli comments that all Gazans are culpable have been made by Palestinian advocates, such as James Zogby, head of the Arab American Institute who told the United Nations on June 27, 2023 that there is “tragic deformity in Palestinian political culture,” as the majority of the people prefer violence.

Most importantly, Israel has said it will end the campaign immediately if Hamas surrenders and returns all of the hostages.

Israel is now going house-to-house to rescue its captives and destroy Hamas’s army and infrastructure amid a population which supports Hamas and terrorism. Hamas has 58% of the seats in the Palestinian Authority parliament from democratic elections held in 2006. The majority of Gazans support killing Jewish civilians in Israel and supported the October 7 massacre. They are family and friends of Hamas fighters, their teachers and students, donors and recipients of Hamas aid. When Israelis go through the Gazan neighborhoods in this tight battlefield, the civilians which surround them are the soft layer of the Hamas military which Hamas exploits, not uninvolved spectators.

It is likely that any other army would have killed five times as many Gazans as Israel at this point of the war. It is impossible to know because this war is like no other.

As to the charge of genocide, Palestinian Arabs are not confined to Gaza. Over half the population lives in the West Bank and Israel has not launched a massive campaign there, as Hamas doesn’t have a strong presence and there are no Israeli hostages in that region. On a macro level, 23,000 Gazans out of 1.8 billion Muslims is a 0.001% figure. By way of comparison, 63% of Europe’s Jews were killed in the Holocaust, and about 39% of global Jewry, an actual premeditated deliberate genocide of unarmed civilians.

There are therefore only two considerations to possibly judge Israel: the terrible loss of children’s lives, and the massive destruction of Gazan infrastructure.

Children are innocent by definition. They have no say in the war and not responsible for the terrible actions of adults. Close to 50% of Gazans are under the age of 18, so one would imagine indiscriminate bombing would cause close to 50% of the 23,000 dead to be children, or around 11,500 people. According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, the number of children killed is about 8,000, or 30% less than expected. While a tragic figure, it defends Israel’s prosecution of the war as being targeted against military targets.

There is no question there is widespread destruction of Gazan infrastructure. Neighborhoods have been leveled all around the Strip. That is a function that those neighborhoods are, and are above, the battlefield. It is actually surprising that a relatively low number of deaths have occurred with so many bombs dropped on the small territory, suggesting a targeted military campaign.

Hamas is sworn to the destruction of Israel and has ruled Gaza unilaterally since 2007 enabling it to embed itself throughout the region. Despite the hostile neighbor next door, Israel has limited its activities against the strip to a blockade to limit the flow of weapons, and to respond when attacked. It has never targeted the region or its residents for annihilation.

It is a tragedy for Palestinian Arabs, for Israel, and the world that so many children in Gaza have died. But the fault remains with the Arab rulers who teach their children death and martyrdom, while they attack Israel from those children’s homes. Israel is trying to minimize those casualties in an impossible battle, and the figures show that it is doing so.

The smoldering rubble of the Gazan battlefield is shocking but there is no genocide of buildings. However, the overall architecture of Gaza’s war mentality and machinery has been enabled by the United Nations, the entity which now sits as judge of Israel’s actions. It is a morbid farce, and must be confronted and rooted out for there to be a prayer of coexistence.