As violence surges, experts warn of war crimes

As the conflict between Israel and the Hamas militant group intensifies, experts and rights group accuse both sides of committing war crimes.

- Sanya Mathur

The confrontation, the deadliest in 50 years, began last week after the Hamas, which has governed the Palestinian territory of Gaza since 2007, launched an unprecedented multifront attack across its border with Israel, killing more than 1,700 people and taking some 150 hostage.

"Shooting civilians en masse, taking hostages, including women and children-undeniably grave abuses of international law, for which there's no justification," Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director of Human Rights Watch, told the Associated Press.

But Israel's retaliation, in which it carried out thousands of air strikes, killing more than 2,000 people in six days, and besieging the Gaza Strip, also violate several international laws, including specifically the 1949 Geneva Conventions and additional protocols.

"Civilians are at grave risk between hostilities between Palestinian armed groups and Israel government forces," Meenakshi Ganguly, the deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division, told HT on Saturday.

"The suffering need solace, sympathy and support but rights violations under humanitarian law should not be condoned under any circumstances," Ganguly said.

In international relations, the rules of war - a combination of international treaties, humanitarian law and common practices explicitly prohibit the causing harm to civilians and non-combatants. The Geneva Conventions also prohibits attacks on installations and civilian infrastructure "whose attack may cause the release of dangerous forces and consequent severe losses among the civilian population".