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Israel’s invasion of Gaza jeopardizes trust in liberal international order
What the Global South is witnessing is Israel, backed by several Global North countries, blatantly violating human rights norms.
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A picture taken from the southern Israeli city of Sderot shows rockets fired from Gaza toward Israel on Oct. 28, 2023, amid ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas. (AFP/Aris Messinis)
A
fter repeatedly carrying out airstrikes and continuing with limited ground attacks, on Saturday, Israel began a larger-scale ground attack. The Israeli Armed Forces (IDF) moved their tanks into Gaza on Friday evening. At the same time, the Israeli Air Force continued to attack Hamas positions in the Gaza Strip.
Several reports stated that fierce fighting by the IDF against members of Hamas' military wing took place in Beit Hanoun and the Bureij refugee camp in the northern Gaza area.
This phenomenon of total war was unexpected and shocked the world because of the high number of non-combatant victims. On Oct. 29, the United Nations issued a resolution through the UN General Assembly (UNGA) with 120 votes from member countries urging a humanitarian truce in Gaza. However, this did not stop Israel's ground attacks. Israel’s continuous attacks enjoy the support of powerful Global North countries, such as the United States, Australia and Germany.
Interestingly, the United Kingdom – whose prime minister declared himself a staunch Israel ally – and France, which imposed a ban on solidarity protests against civilian victims in Gaza, also voted “yes” for a humanitarian truce. This is evidence that popular demands to refrain from war and thus fundamentally support the fulfilment of human rights norms still prevail.
Nevertheless, under the cover of continued support to attack Hamas in Gaza, these ongoing attacks will produce devastating and long-term impacts on the liberal structure of global order and world peace.
A likely consequence is a decline in trust in the liberal order among the Global South, particularly Muslim-majority countries like Indonesia and Malaysia. After the Cold War, the Global North has tended to play “world savior" by proposing a “rules-based” liberal international order, founded upon respect for human rights and international legal frameworks, democracy and multilateralism, among other tenets.
This idea is now being tested with how the Global North is responding to Israel’s invasion of Gaza. It is now apparent that Israel's invasion fails to adhere to the most essential principles of humanitarian law, particularly proportionality and discrimination. Israel's attack resulted in a high number of civilian casualties, and its aerial bombing was not proportional, thus violating the principles of jus in bello (justice in war).
