Illustration by Paola Bilancieri.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are widely considered one of the most powerful armies in the world. And, according to Israeli leaders, they are “the most moral army in the world.” How, then, to reconcile these statements with what is happening now in Gaza and Lebanon, where tens of thousands of women and children have been slaughtered or injured in the conflict with the Palestinians?

On October 13 and 14, dozens of Palestinians civilians were killed and many more wounded by the IDF’s attacks on a Gaza hospital and several refugee camps. The dead included women waiting for food to be delivered and children at play. The IDF claims that they only operate against terrorists and are investigating the incident, a lame excuse when practically never these investigations by the Israeli military result in punishment for those guilty of serious crimes.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) states that the IDF shelled dozens of hungry people waiting for food at a distribution center in the Jabalia refugee camp. Dozens of homes were destroyed in these incidents. The humanitarian organization Save the Children estimated last June that around 21,000 kids are missing in the Gaza Strip, and that roughly 4,000 children are buried under debris. “No parent should have to dig through rubble or mass graves to try to find their child’s body,” said Jeremy Stoner, Save the Children’s regional director for the Middle East.

UNICEF reports that in Gaza cases of diarrhea among children under five have soared, while cases of scabies, lice, chicken pox, skin rashes and respiratory and gastrointestinal infections have also climbed. Hundreds of thousands of children have been killed or injured, and more than half a million children are in need of psychological support due to sustained trauma. Malnutrition is rampant; when left untreated malnutrition and disease are a deadly combination.

Last August, a 10-month-old baby became partially paralyzed after contracting polio in Gaza. According to the World Health Organization, Gaza has not registered a polio case for 25 years. Because of the dismal sanitary conditions, type 2 poliovirus had been detected in samples collected from the territory’s wastewater last June. Poliovirus, most frequently spread through sewage and contaminated water, is highly infectious.

Humanitarian organizations blame the re-emergence of polio in Gaza on the disruption of vaccination programs and the massive damage to water and sanitation systems. “Hundreds of thousands of children in Gaza are at risk,” said UN Secretary General António Guterres. UNICEF’s Executive Director Catherine Russel said that the re-emergence of the virus in the strip after 25 years is “another sobering reminder of how chaotic, desperate and dangerous the situation has become.” The Gaza Ministry of Health accused the IDF of intensifying “its targeting of the health system” in north Gaza as more hospitals came under siege or fire.

The IDF’s actions in Gaza and Lebanon, which have resulted in the deaths of thousands of women and children, have been widely condemned. According to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, at least 2,412 people have been killed during the IDF attacks. The Gaza Health Ministry reports that 42,519 people have been killed in Gaza. According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, dozens of people were killed or injured after an IDF attack in the town of Beit Lahia.

During a recent trip to Belgium, Pope Francis suggested that the IDF’s attacks in Gaza and Lebanon have been “immoral” and disproportionate, saying that they go beyond the rules of war. According to International Humanitarian Law, “The harm caused to protected civilians or civilian property must be proportional and ‘not excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated’ by an attack on a military objective.”

Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the Chief Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court investigated allegations of war crimes during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In an open letter containing his findings, he elucidates the use of proportionality. In the letter he states, “A crime occurs if there is an intentional attack directed against civilians (principle of distinction) (Article 8(2)(b)(i)) or an attack is launched on a military objective in the knowledge that the incidental civilian injuries would be clearly excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage (principle of proportionality) (Article 8(2)(b)(iv)).”

The IDF consistently violates elemental rules of war. As Omer Bartov, a Professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University wrote, “If we truly believe that the Holocaust taught us a lesson about the need –or really, the duty—to preserve our own humanity and dignity by protecting those of others, this is the time to stand up and raise our voices, before Israel’s leadership plunges it and its neighbors into the abyss.”

As 2,000 pound-bombs continue falling on women and children, Prime Minister Netanyahu struts among his troops. He is totally unconcerned to the evil he is causing, as Gaza and Lebanon become not only a cemetery for people, but a cemetery for hope and peace in the region.

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