Gaza and International law - Essay Example

Gaza and International Law Gaza-Israel Conflict – Reason/Rationale The fighting between Gaza and Israel in the region of Gaza Strip and Southern Israel is a result of an Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Palestinian militants in Gaza repeatedly hurl rockets with the purpose of spreading terror among civilians of Israel. Israel has persistently used bombs and ground strategies to attack Hamas with more focus on destroying cultural heritages of Gaza along with residential areas and government sites.

In this context, the research is undertaken to see how Gaza conflict is violating the international law.Peace treaties In recent years, there have been a number of agreements between Israel and the Palestinians.Camp David Summit, 2000 – A peace summit was convened by the US President Bill Clinton between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat. This summit had no fruitful results since the offer, not including East Jerusalem, that was made by Barak was not acceptable by the Palestinians.

Taba, 2001 – Clinton arranged for further negotiations to take place in Taba, Egypt. Although the conversations held were not of top level, nevertheless the bridge between Israel and the Palestinians was narrowed although not resolved. According to EU reports, Israel agreed to the idea that East Jerusalem will be capital of a Palestinian state. However, Barak was not ready to make any kind of compromises (BBC, 2013). Arab Peace Initiative, 2002 – Talks were held that a Palestinian state can be set up in the West Bank and Gaza with a fair solution to the refugee problem.

This condition was set to be agreed if Arab countries would accept Israel as their state. The positive element of this plan was that Arab intervened to create peace between Israel and Gaza, and the negative element was that same issues that were topics in previous meetings had to be renegotiated.Roadmap, 2003 – A plan was made by the US, Russia, EU and the UN to suggest three phases of peace settlement. In the first phase, Palestinians would withdraw all violence from Israel. In the second phase, a Palestinian state would be created with borders agreed upon by the two states.

The final agreement would be made in the third phase. Till date, the roadmap has not been implemented but acts as a guiding step during negotiations. This entire plan was reversed in Geneva Accord, 2003 according to which agreement will precede any peace and security measures (BBC, 2013).Violation of International Law International law takes into consideration two kinds of armed conflicts – international conflict which takes place between two states, and non-international conflict that occurs within a state like civil wars (Kauffman, 2008, p.32). The Gaza-Iraq fighting falls in the former category, and because of indiscrimination attacks on civilians in both states, it violates the International Law of Humanity.

As an attempt to act as negotiator, the Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak advised a cease-fire agreement which was taken on January 18, 2009. It was occasionally violated from both sides and is a clear demonstration of International Law violation (Zanotti et al., 2010, p.11; Gidda, 2014). As recently on July 27, 2014 a U.N. school in northern Gaza Strip has been hit by Israeli artillery resulting in death of 15 Palestinians. On the same day, 17 more died because of an airstrike on a Gaza street market.

Director of U.N., Pierre Krahenbuhl has condemned Israel for violating the International Law of Humanity. According to Krahenbuhl, Israel was previously alerted of the school that was sheltering thousands of people. He said, “I condemn in the strongest possible terms this serious violation of international law by Israeli forces” (Greenberg, 2014). Opinion: I believe that the conflict requires global intervention or UN interference in order to ascertain peace. Otherwise the conflict will damage the cultural and social ambience of the region.

Although Israel pretends that their problem is with the Hamas, one cannot ignore the negative impact and involvement o Gaza. The conflict needs to be explained in terms of true stories and international law.  ReferencesBBC (July 29, 2013). History of Mid-East peace talks, BBC, retrieved on August 1, 2014 from: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-11103745 Gidda, M. (July 24, 2014). As Israel Fights Hamas in Gaza, Egypt Plays the Peacemaker Once Again, Time, retrieved on August 1, 2014 from: http://time.

com/3029132/israel-gaza-egypt/Greenberg, J. (July 30, 2014). U.N. accuses Israel of violating international law in Gaza school shelling, The Sacramento Bee, retrieved on August 1, 2014 from: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/07/30/6592846/nowhere-to-flee-israeli-shells.htmlKauffman, M. (2008). Building and using datasets on armed conflicts, Amsterdam: IOS Press Zanotti, J. et al. (2010). Israel and Hamas: Conflict in Gaza (2008-2009), DIANE Publishing