Gaza / Israel: notes from Costa Rica on the encirclement of justice that is gradually closing in on Israel
Gaza / Israel: notes from Costa Rica on the encirclement of justice that is gradually closing in on Israel
Nicolas Boeglin, Professor of Public International Law, Faculty of Law, University of Costa Rica (UCR). Contact: nboeglin(a)gmail.com
“What is happening in Gaza is not a military operation, it is a full-scale assault against our people. They are massacres against innocent civilians. Nothing in natural law or international law allows civilians to be attacked and such indiscriminate and barbaric attacks to be perpetrated against them.” / What is happening in Gaza is not a military operation, it is a full-scale assault against our people. They are massacres against innocent civilians. Nothing in natural law or international law allows civilians to be attacked and such indiscriminate and barbaric attacks to be perpetrated against them. Statement by the Palestinian representative to the United Nations Security Council at its meeting on October 16, 2023 (see minutes S/PV/9439). org/Home/Mobile?FinalSymbol=S%2FPV. 9439&Language=E&DeviceType=Desktop&LangRequested=False”>S/PV/9439, on page 9) / Statement by the representative of Palestine to the United Nations Security Council, at its meeting on October 16, 2023 (see verbatim record S/PV/9439, on page 9)
Introduction
On the eve of the Christmas festivities, the international court in The Hague set the deadline for filing briefs in an ordinance, within the framework of the advisory procedure requested by the General Assembly a few days earlier, on December 19, 2024: see text of the ordinance in French and in org/sites/default/files/case-related/196/196-20241223-ord-01-00-fr.pdf“>French and English dated December 23, 2024, of the International Court of Justice / ICJ.
Unlike similar requests received in the past by the ICJ in relation to the situation in the occupied Palestinian territory, this time the deadline set by the international judge in The Hague is shorter (Note 1).
It should be remembered that during 2024, the ICJ issued an advisory opinion, this time on the illegal nature of the colonization and occupation of Palestinian territory by Israel, the scope of which we had the opportunity to analyze, as well as the various official reactions of some States upon learning of its content, including the silence of the United States and Canada (Note 2).
On the other hand, in these early days of 2025, Ireland formally submitted to the ICJ a request to intervene in the case brought by South Africa against Israel for genocide in Gaza: see official ICJ communiqué in French and in English. org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20250107-pre-01-00-fr.pdf“>French and English version of January 7 and the text of their request.
This time in relation to the national justice system, on January 5, 2025, it was reported that the Brazilian justice system had issued an arrest warrant against an Israeli soldier suspected of having committed war crimes in Gaza, who was visiting Brazil for some reason (see article by AgenciaBrasil). Israel provided him with assistance so that he could quickly leave Brazilian territory on the first available commercial flight (see article in the Washington Post): it would be extremely interesting to know the type of ‘urgency’ invoked by Israeli diplomats in Brazil when dealing with the Brazilian authorities about their air ticket. We read in this CNN article from the same day, January 5th, that, in an official statement from Israel, it was indicated that:
the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gideon Saar, immediately activated the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to ensure that the Israeli citizen was not in danger.
It is understood that Israel would now proceed to “immediately activate” its diplomatic officials appointed to embassies abroad to allow its nationals wanted by the law … to escape it. How so? As it reads. Unless the “immediately activate” part of the Israeli diplomatic apparatus has to be interpreted in some other way that escapes us.
As will be seen in the following lines, the judges, both those who make up international jurisdictions and those who make up national jurisdictions in some states (in addition to Brazil), are clear that those responsible for what has been happening in Gaza since the afternoon/evening of October 7, 2023, must answer to the justice system for their actions in the face of the total impunity that exists in Israel, and which has been denounced by Israeli NGOs for several years now (see, for example, this study by the Israeli NGO B’tselem entitled ‘No accountability’, and, in the case of colonization in the West Bank, a note about a very late first action by Israeli justice registered only in May 2024 by the Israeli NGO PeaceNow).
We will focus first on the international justice actions observed in the last month of 2024, and then on some actions brought before the national justice systems of some States, but not before briefly presenting the context in which they take place.
Photograph of a man in Israel listening on January 26, 2024, to the President of the ICJ reading a first ordinance against Israel in the context of the lawsuit filed by South Africa against Israel for genocide in Gaza. Photo taken from press article published in Israel by the digital medium Magazine+972, entitled “Israel shirked accountability for decades: is the ICJ breaking its armor?” edition of February 5, 2024.
Brief contextualization based on recent data
Despite the lack of coverage in the international press of the international court’s decision on December 23 (as well as the previous request made by the General Assembly), a reading of this ordinance and the deadline set reflect the extreme urgency with which the judge in The Hague has decided to process this request for an advisory opinion.
An interview with one of the great specialists on the subject of genocide (see interview conducted by Democracy Now) released on December 30, 2024 and titled “Total Moral, Ethical Failure: Holocaust Scholar Omer Bartov on Israel’s Genocide in Gaza” confirms the urgent need to curb Israel’s genocidal momentum in Gaza. Holocaust Scholar Omer Bartov on Israel’s Genocide in Gaza” confirms the urgent need to curb Israel’s genocidal momentum in Gaza. From within Israel itself, a historian has collected and compiled a wide range of data on the various exactions to which Israeli military forces have been subjected in Gaza since the evening of October 7, 2023 (see
On December 30, 2024, a large group of United Nations human rights experts demanded that Israel be held accountable for all violations committed in Gaza under existing international law (see joint communiqué). On December 31, 2024, a United Nations report was also released on the systematic and deliberate nature of Israel’s attacks on hospitals and medical centers in Gaza (see official statement from the United Nations with a link to the report itself): as already pointed out, there has been a notable lack of dissemination in the major international media of these press releases issued by the United Nations during the last days of 2024.
This alert issued by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) on January 3 about the dramatic effects of rain and low temperatures on the displaced population in Gaza sheltering in makeshift camps and exposed to the elements.
The statement on anti-Semitism made on January 6, 2025 by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in person (see text), in the same way, it is part of this strange trend of the majority of the major international press media when criticizing Israel’s actions. This statement reads as follows:
I also reject attempts to conflate all criticism of Israeli government policies and military operations with antisemitism. It is not antisemitic, for example, to deplore military operations that raise grave concerns over violations of international humanitarian and human rights law. Nor is it antisemitic to condemn those violations and urge respect for the law – including the decisions of international courts . Nor is it antisemitic to call Israel to account for the tens of thousands of people in Gaza, including more than 250 of our own UN staff, who have been killed since 7 October 2023.
It should be noted that on January 2, Israel revised upwards the number of its casualties in Gaza (totaling 891), which includes 38 suicides among its military forces (see article by Haaretz). The increase is quite significant when compared to the figure of 393 military casualties recorded in the United Nations report on Gaza as of December 31, 2024, a figure obtained from official Israeli data (see report). Regarding suicides and the mental health of Israeli soldiers sent to Gaza, in October 2024 this report by CNN showed the kind of trauma suffered by many reservists returning from Gaza. In 2017, this report by the Israeli digital media outlet Magazine+972 – which we recommend reading in full – stated that:
According to a study conducted by Major Leah Shelef, who heads the Israeli Air Force’s Mental Health Clinic, 2009 saw 188 suicide attempts — a third of them by women. Am I included in those 188 attempts? According to statistics published in Haaretz, from 2007 until 2013, 124 soldiers committed suicide during their army service, while 237 soldiers committed suicide between 2002-2012. Even worse, between 2009 and 2011, the main cause of death among soldiers was suicide.
It is worth pointing out this voluminous collection of testimonies from Israeli soldiers who participated in the deadly military ground offensive in Gaza in the summer of 2014, produced by the organization Breaking the Silence in Israel (242 pages). This is an exercise preceded by another similar compilation (112 pages) relating to the equally deadly military offensive in Gaza in 2009 (https://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Operation_Cast_Lead_Gaza_2009_Eng. pdf”>compilation (112 pages) relating to the equally deadly military offensive in Gaza in 2009: in both compilations, the type of instructions received by these young Israelis and the trauma that carrying them out without much prior preparation must have meant for them is evident.
Finally, it is worth noting that official statistics released on December 31, 2024, by the Israeli authorities indicate that during 2024, more than 82,600 Israeli citizens have decided to travel abroad and not return (see article in the TimesofIsrael on the same date), without specifying in this article whether or not they are people of an age to be called up by the Israeli army in Gaza. In September 2024, the Israeli authorities reported a rather peculiar way of solving the shortage of combatants in Gaza (see article by France24).
By way of complement to this briefly outlined current context, we also recommend this recent interview (Al Jazeera, January 6, 2024) with several experts on the medium- and long-term effects on human health of the particles inhaled by survivors of massive bombings in highly populated areas such as Gaza: Health effects that in the past were observed in the bodies of people living in cities in Iraq and Syria, and that in 2024, in addition to Gaza, threaten the health of residents of urban centers in Lebanon in the face of the intensity of the bombings by Israel that began in mid-September 2024.
Christmas celebrations in the midst of indiscriminate bombings in Gaza
It should be emphasized that while much of the world was preparing to celebrate the end of the year, the latest United Nations report on the situation in Gaza available (see report dated December 31, 2024) details the total senselessness of Israeli military action in Gaza, with its daily attacks against the civilian population of Gaza and its deadly toll:
Between the afternoons of 24 and 30 December, according to the Ministry of Health (MoH) in Gaza, 203 Palestinians were killed and 574 were injured. Between 7 October 2023 and 30 December 2024, at least 45,541 Palestinians were killed and 108,338 were injured, according to MoH in Gaza. Casualty figures covering until the afternoon of 31 December are not available as of the time of reporting.
The previous report (as of December 24) indicated that:
Between the afternoons of 17 and 24 December, according to the Ministry of Health (MoH) in Gaza, 279 Palestinians were killed and 723 were injured. Between 7 October 2023 and 24 December 2024, at least 45,338 Palestinians were killed and 107,764 were injured, according to MoH in Gaza.
For many experts and observers, the number of fatalities in Gaza is much higher than the 45, 541 recorded as of December 31, 2024, since the United Nations only reports deaths that have been identified as such by the Gaza health authorities (an undetermined number of bodies lying under the rubble remain unaccounted for, as rescue teams are unable to access and identify them, as well as a large number of bodies found, whose identity is unknown).
In this RFI
En tant qu’ancien officier d’artillerie, quand je vois la fréquence et la puissance des armements qui sont utilisés tous les jours pour frapper. Il y a entre 100 et 500 frappes par jour sur la bande de Gaza. On rajoute les combats terrestres et maintenant la catastrophe humanitaire. On peut dire qu’en moyenne, sur les 7 derniers mois, il y a entre 200 et 300 morts par jour. Et donc ça veut dire qu’on est entre 60 000 et 70 000 morts, et trois fois plus de blessés.
With regard to the official figures provided by the Palestinian authorities, it should be emphasized that the Gaza health authorities have historically demonstrated that the death toll was confirmed years later by international teams of investigators. This is objective and verifiable data, but some analysts insist on ignoring it in order to discredit the value of these figures:
– in 2018, during the abuses committed by Israeli security forces against unarmed Palestinian demonstrators participating in the “Great March” (see link that allows access to the report of a United Nations Commission of Inquiry);
– in 2014, after the military offensive in Gaza (70 Israeli deaths, including 67 soldiers, and 2,251 Palestinian deaths, including 551 children (see summary);
– in 2009, following the military offensive carried out in Gaza between December 28, 2008 and January 17, 2009 by Israel (see report).
We even had the opportunity to explain it live to the Israeli Consul in Costa Rica, on a radio program in which he participated in November 2023 (see video, after the presenter told the Israeli diplomat ‘Amir, Amir, don’t make me call you a liar’, min. 2:03:40 onwards).
Photo taken from a press article published in Israel on December 27, 2024, entitled “Israel storms northern Gaza’s last hospital as remaining residents forced south” (Magazine+972), which we recommend reading in full.
In relation to the 2014 military offensive and international criminal justice, the Israeli press itself revealed the existence of a secret list (which has remained so ever since) with several hundred names of soldiers and army officers who were advised to be extremely careful when traveling abroad (see article in the TimesofIsrael dated July 16, 2020). It is very likely that a similar secret list will have been drawn up in Israel by its top military authorities in 2024.
Costa Rica’s positions at the United Nations (2022-2024)
For our esteemed readers in Costa Rica, it is worth recalling that when the United Nations General Assembly accepted the advisory opinion issued on July 19, 2024, in the vote on a resolution (see Canada. Or in Europe, the delegation of Germany as well as that of Netherlands.
In other words, “Do you abstain? Explain yourself” is what is expected of a delegate at the United Nations: in effect, as is well known, when voting for or against a text (or abstaining), a representative of a State has the opportunity to explain to the other delegations what motivated the position of his or her State (what is called in diplomatic jargon ‘explanation of vote’).
The explanation of the vote against by the delegate from the Czech Republic shows how a State presents as its own arguments that in reality reappear in the explanations of vote of other States, the United States being one to have used them.
The justification for Costa Rica’s vote, on the other hand, appeared later in an official communiqué posted by the Costa Rican diplomatic apparatus, invoking commercial reasons. How … like that? Well, … as you can read: see our published note on the subject, in its section “Some brief comments regarding the ‘justification’ officially provided by the Costa Rican diplomacy” (Note 3). In order not to cause further embarrassment to that already caused in these first days of the year 2025, we will avoid reproducing these comments.
Also, for our Costa Rican readers, it should be remembered that the advisory opinion issued on July 19, 2024, by the ICJ resulted from a vote taken in the last days of 2022 at the United Nations General Assembly. On that occasion, Costa Rica was recorded as voting against, together with Guatemala in Latin America (Note 4). On that occasion, the Costa Rican delegation did not consider it appropriate to explain their vote against to the other delegations present in New York. Thus the embarrassment of September 2024 can be related to the blush of December 2022.
The Costa Rican delegation’s technique of silence does not appear to be the monopoly of its diplomats in New York alone: it was also observed in April 2024 by the Costa Rican delegation in Geneva, when it abstained in a vote of the Human Rights Council urgently calling for an arms embargo on Israel (see article dated April 5, 2024 from the digital media Delfino.cr).
Blushing, going through a feeling of deep unease between the two of them, is what this sequence leaves us with.
Some recent advertisements from Costa Rica in the last months of 2024
It is worth mentioning that shortly after the first anniversary of October 7, 2023, Costa Rica announced the resumption of its negotiations with Israel with a view to adopting a free trade agreement (see news item on the radio program Amelia Rueda from October 18, 2024).
Remember that Israel already signed a similar treaty with Panama in May 2018 (see official note) and it is very possible that it will be on the agenda with El Salvador (see official statement of 2022). On October 24, 2024, the appointment of the new Costa Rican ambassador to Israel was made official (see official letter from the Presidential Office).
A few months earlier, in March 2024, a report on Costa Rican television (see article in La Nación: ”we talk about Costa Rica or Iran” (sic.) and article in the Tico Times). To date, there is no known explanation for such a strange analogy between Iran and Costa Rica in the mind of the current Prime Minister of Israel.
Recently, Costa Rica, for some reason, saw fit to negotiate a bilateral environmental agreement with the current Israeli authorities and … announce it in the middle of a world summit: indeed, during the recent COP29 held in Baku, Azerbaijan, Costa Rica surprised many by announcing the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Israel on environmental matters (see official statement from its counterparts in Israel). In reaction, Costa Rica obtained the undignified award of “Fossil of the Day” given by outraged international environmental organizations (see article published in the weekly Ojoalclima, the final part of which exposes the Costa Rican authorities in their sudden refusal to give explanations).
Israel’s two new unwavering allies in Latin America
Beyond the oddities that are sometimes discovered when reading the Costa Rican press, without knowing very well where so many coincidences may come from, the truth is that Israel and its unconditional North American ally spared no effort to obtain a significant number of votes against the resolution on December 19, 2024 in New York: its effects were quite modest, and the Norwegian initiative announced since October 29, 2024 (Note 5) prospered successfully, without much difficulty.
The voting record indicates that on December 19, 2024, the proposed text had a large majority of 137 votes in favor, 12 against, and 22 abstentions. As a result, the various pressures exerted by Israel and the United States were limited to gathering only 10 votes against, including those of Argentina, Hungary, Paraguay, the Czech Republic and some additional members of the so-called “coalition” that Israel can always count on in this type of diplomatic contest. ‘Coalition’ is a misnomer and is deliberately placed in quotation marks, given the very particular characteristics of this small group of states (mostly Pacific Ocean island states) that Israel and the United States frequently resort to in order to disguise their isolation within the United Nations (Note 6).
The details of the vote can also be reviewed in this YouTube video, which shows some delegations hesitating for a time before deciding their vote in the final seconds. Among the 22 states that chose to abstain are only from Latin America, Panama and Uruguay, accompanied in the American hemisphere by Canada.
This time Costa Rica voted in favor, along with 136 other states, including notably China, France, the United Kingdom and Russia. Germany also voted in favor (see the explanation of its vote by its representative in New York). Among the somewhat surprising abstentions observed in Europe is that of Greece. Strangely, no explanation of vote was observed on the part of the US delegation: neither the website of the US delegation to the United Nations nor that of the State Department itself has seen fit to post any text explaining their vote against.
The vote that took place on December 19, 2024, in New York confirmed Israel’s pronounced isolation within the international community: in Latin America, two states in 2024 nevertheless managed to slightly gloss over this situation, namely Argentina and Paraguay.
Argentina, as well as Paraguay, are, in recent times, replacing the small Pacific islands that have traditionally been very attentive to Israel’s requests (Fiji Islands, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea and Tonga), forming the only “coalition” in the United Nations for several years to accompany Israel and the United States in this type of exercise within the United Nations.
With regard to Argentina, it is worth recalling a rather unusual event observed at the United Nations, when the current Argentine authorities chose on October 30th to dismiss their top diplomatic authority after she instructed her delegation at the United Nations to vote in favor of a draft resolution (see official statement from the United Nations). This same extreme solitude of the United States and Israel was observed in November 2023, with 187 votes in favor on that occasion (see official statement from the United Nations).
Note that on December 12, Paraguay moved its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, in open violation of the consensus that has existed within the international community since the 1960s: see article by La Nación (Argentina). In September 2018, we had the opportunity to analyze the few months that the Guarani embassy remained in Jerusalem: three months in total to be exact (Note 7). It should be noted that the opening of the Paraguayan embassy in Jerusalem was registered on May 21, 2018, while the United States embassy was inaugurated a week earlier, on May 14, 2018.
On January 3, 2025, a group of social organizations based in Uruguay strongly condemned the official announcement made by the country’s authorities on December 23, 2024 (see text).
“Strategic” alliances of some in Latin America
Beyond the spaces that Israel seems to have found in the south of the American continent in the year 2024, it is worth noting that, in the case of another state that has shown itself to be extremely close to Israel in recent years (Brazil), its intelligence services have discovered the existence of an electronic cloud that is hosted on a server in Israel with private data of more than 30,000 Brazilians (see this press release from ElDiario /Argentina, January 2024): it is most likely one of the effects of the so-called “strategic partnership” with Israel announced in 2018 by the then Brazilian president at the beginning of his term of office (see article by France24).
This BBC report, which we recommend reading in full, details the type of relations that existed until 2022 between the Brazilian intelligence services and some Israeli companies. This other article explains the importance of the cybersecurity offered by Israel to the States that have agreed to sign the so-called “Abraham Accords”, promoted by the United States itself (see official statement of 2023).
In Israel, the use of the Israeli spy program Pegasus in 2022 against Salvadoran social leaders and activists was denounced in El Salvador (see article by Resecurity).
It is worth noting that for several years now, Israel’s use of facial recognition technology combined with the monitoring and interception of communications and artificial intelligence in Gaza has given rise to complaints from various sectors (Note 8).
National judges: first actions that may lead to others
Although a BBC report published on December 23, 2024 (see text) revealed the type of orders that Israeli reservists in Gaza receive and that some of them are no longer willing to carry out, many soldiers have carried them out and a small group of them have even boasted of having done so on social networks (thus allowing them to be easily identified).
With specific reference to Latin America, Israeli soldiers who committed war crimes in Gaza are apparently visiting some countries in the region for some reason.
We have already referred in the first lines to what was reported on January 5, 2025 in the Brazilian press, with an Israeli soldier who fought in Gaza wanted by the justice system who managed with the help of his embassy to escape Brazilian justice by getting on the first commercial flight to leave Brazilian territory (see story from the Washington Post): given that this is the first case to be made public, it is likely that the judicial and immigration authorities will establish some kind of protocol to prevent it from happening again. As indicated above, it would be of great interest to know the type of “urgency” invoked by Israeli diplomats to arrange this plane ticket with the Brazilian authorities and the airlines, given that a state should not provide emergency mechanisms for one of its nationals, wanted by the justice system of another state, to escape it. Normally, an arrest warrant is notified to the airport and immigration authorities and in this particular case, the person concerned managed to evade the controls by leaving Brazilian territory on the first available commercial flight. How did he manage it? It is not known, but this article from CNN indicates that Israel would be willing to hide the true identity of its nationals when they travel abroad to avoid them this kind of problem. In this article in the New York Times published on January 9, indicates that it is very likely that this case detected in Brazil is not an isolated case, but that many other similar cases will be observed in the future:
Unlike more senior leaders, lower-level soldiers do not usually have diplomatic immunity, or the resources to research which jurisdictions may leave them vulnerable to war crimes complaints.
In this other
IDF reservists who fought in Gaza are being advised to first check with the Foreign Ministry regarding the level of danger in any country they wish to visit.
According to this other article in the TimesofIsrael dated January 15, 2025, it seems that Italy is no longer a ‘safe’ destination.
The sudden complication of what appeared to be his vacation in Latin America is also suffered by an Israeli soldier who is in the extreme south of Chile and who has been the subject of an action by several NGOs in the Chilean courts (see report by Radio UChile on December 28). Greater care would be expected from the Chilean airport and immigration authorities, from the airlines accredited at Chilean airports, and from the Chilean border police, so that what was observed in Brazil on January 5, 2025, cannot be repeated.
Note that this type of legal action in national courts has also been brought before European courts, especially in the case of Israeli soldiers holding a European passport in addition to their Israeli passport and suspected of having committed war crimes in Gaza.
France has made several attempts against an Israeli soldier holding a French passport suspected of committing acts of torture against detainees in Gaza: in September 2024, the French justice system chose to dismiss the case (see article in Le Figaro), which provoked the indignation of many activists. Regarding this Israeli soldier who holds a French passport, see also this press release from the LDH, which states that:
Depuis le 7 octobre 2023, la campagne génocidaire d’Israël à Gaza a tué au moins 44 000 Palestinien-ne-s et en a blessé 105 000 autres. De nombreux éléments permettent d’établir que des crimes internationaux ont été commis par plusieurs des quelque 4 000 citoyens français mobilisés dans l’armée israélienne. Pourtant, à ce jour, aucune enquête judiciaire relative à ces crimes n’a été ouverte par les autorités françaises.
In the case of Belgium, two Belgian/Israeli soldiers are the subject of a case before the Belgian courts: see article by JusticeInfo from October 2024 detailing these two cases before the Belgian courts. It reads that for the plaintiffs:
Il faut faire respecter le droit international pour forcer un cessez-le-feu et mettre fin à l’impunité qui nourrit les crimes suivants. La justice belge doit faire sa part du travail, aux cotés de la justice internationale.
The United Kingdom, for its part, has registered around a hundred of its nationals in the ranks of the Israeli army sent to fight in Gaza (see press release press article), and no legal action of this kind has yet been heard of in UK courts.
This section should also refer to a similar action brought this time in Morocco (see article by ElPais/Spain, September 2024).
There are probably other similar cases being heard in courts in various parts of Latin America, but no further information has been released to the press. Or that discreet diplomatic “maneuvers” by the Israeli diplomatic apparatus with the authorities of some States may allow some of its nationals to be exfiltrated with the utmost discretion.
In the case of Costa Rica, in addition to the aforementioned Santa Teresa beach in Cóbano, where an Israeli man was killed, apparently murdered by other Israelis in April 2021 (see news item from DiarioExtra), there are several other beaches that are very popular in Israel as tourist destinations. At the time of writing (January 9, 2025), nothing has appeared in the press regarding any action similar to those observed in Brazil and Chile by any Costa Rican judicial authority. Note that the national press reported on a soldier in Gaza with a Costa Rican passport (see Teletica news item from November 2024), without providing further details about the type of operations in which he has been involved.
With regard to the misuse of private data by Israel and its companies, it should be noted that on December 21, it was reported that a California judge rejected an appeal, now opening up the possibility of bringing the Israeli company NSO, which specializes in placing spyware in general-purpose applications such as the very popular WhatsApp application, to justice (see article in The Guardian).
By way of conclusion
On January 15, 2025, this statement by the head of US diplomacy highlights the total failure of Israel’s military strategy in Gaza: see article in the Times of Israel entitled ‘Blinken: we assess that Hamas has recruited almost as many new fighters as it lost’. Our esteemed readers will be able to see for themselves how little it has been disseminated in the major international press.
Beyond the relays that Israel seems to have in some newsrooms to cover up its actions in Gaza and omit its failures, there is no doubt that international justice and national justice have occupied and will continue to occupy Israel’s diplomatic apparatus for a long time to come: several of its nationals identified as committing exactions in Gaza during 2023 or 2024 are now being searched for by various organizations in various parts of the world.
With regard to international justice, it is clear that the ICJ is determined to process the request for an advisory opinion much more quickly. This constitutes a new attempt to apply to Israel the rules that govern states in the international legal system, which Israel repeatedly violates in the occupied Palestinian territory, while maintaining the status of a United Nations Member State.
Note that the latest United Nations report on Gaza as of December 31, 2024 (see report), indicates that Israel has deliberately killed again those who inform the world from Gaza about what is happening:
On 26 December, five Palestinian journalists and media workers were reportedly killed when a press van belonging to Al Quds Today TV was hit in front of Al Awda Hospital in An Nuseirat refugee camp in Deir al Balah. The UN Human Right Office condemned the airstrike on the “unarmed and clearly identified” press members, adding that, although “the Israeli military has claimed they were affiliated with Palestinian armed groups … affiliation alone would not remove their protection as civilians.” The Committee to Protect Journalists stated that with this incident “at least nine Gazan journalists have been killed in less than two weeks.” According to the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, over 190 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since October 2023.
The figure of 190 Palestinian journalists killed since October 7, 2023 by Israel in Gaza entails a sustained effort by Israel to prevent the world from being informed of what is happening there: we are talking about a chilling average of more than 12.5 Palestinian journalists per month killed since that date.
The sustained use of the veto by the US delegation to protect Israel within the Security Council has historically prevented this body from taking sanctions against Israel. Specifically, December 30, 2024, marked the 10th anniversary of a memorable exercise in which the United States delegation maneuvered and voted against a draft resolution in such a way that Palestinian diplomacy chose to direct its efforts towards the International Criminal Court in The Hague, with the formal recognition of acceptance of the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC) materialized on the first day of 2015 (Note 9).
Precisely in relation to international criminal justice, it is worth noting that less than a month before December 19, 2024 (on November 21), the grip of international justice was strongly felt for Israel, this time coming from another jurisdiction also located in The Hague: in effect, the Pre-Trial Chamber of the ICC unanimously confirmed the request for the arrest of the current Prime Minister of Israel and his former Minister of Defense for war crimes, as well as that of a leader of the military wing of Hamas for crimes against humanity (Note 10). The courage of the three judges of this Preliminary Chamber deserves to be recognized and applauded, given that confronting Israel and the United States (and the circles that gravitate around them) has meant threats and intimidation of all kinds.
Such has been Israel’s teaching against the civilian population of Gaza, and such has been the deliberate will to contaminate and destroy the soil, the water sources, and the various forms of subsistence such as vegetable gardens and fields, natural water reservoirs, vegetation cover and other natural elements that sustain life, that since December 18, 2024, without explicitly mentioning what is happening in Gaza, a general ICC project on environmental crimes is circulating (open to comments and observations: see official communiqué from the ICC).
From this perspective, an internal document leaked in Israel in November 2023 aimed at making Gaza unlivable for its 2.3 million inhabitants takes on much greater relevance: see article in Magazine+972 entitled “Expell all Palestinians from Gaza, recommends Israeli Gov’t ministry”, which contains an English version of the leaked document. This same Israeli media outlet detailed in an article published during the same month of November 2023 entitled “A mass assassination factory’: Inside Israel’s calculated bombing of Gaza”, the intentionally destructive nature of Israel’s operations in Gaza since the evening of October 7, 2023.
– -Notes – –
Note 1: In the case of the request for an advisory opinion voted on by the General Assembly on December 30, 2022, on the illegal occupation and colonization of Palestinian territory, the ICJ set in its ordinance of February 3, 2023, the deadline for the delivery of briefs by States and international organizations as July 25, 2023 (see order the deadline for the submission of written pleadings by States and international organizations to be July 25, 2023. On the other hand, in the case of the more urgent request received in relation to the construction of a wall by Israel (officially called a ”fence” in Israel, a “fence” in English), in Palestinian territory at the end of 2003, the ICJ set in its ordinance of December 19, 2003, January 30, 2004 as the deadline for the receipt of these briefs (see ordinance).
Note 2: See BOEGLIN N., “Prolonged occupation and illegal Israeli colonization of the Palestinian territory: notes in relation to the recent advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ)”, July 19, 2024. Text available here.
Note 3: See BOEGLIN N., “Gaza/Israel: Regarding Bolivia’s Recent Request for Intervention before the ICJ”, October 9, 2024 edition. Text available here.
Note 4: It should be remembered that the aforementioned advisory opinion of the ICJ of July 19, 2024, is the result of a process that began at the end of 2022, during which Costa Rica voted against it with Guatemala, without giving further explanations for such an unusual position of the Costa Rican delegation to the United Nations: see in this regard BOEGLIN N., “América Latina ante la solicitud de opinión consultiva a la justicia internacional sobre la situación en Palestina”, Portal de la UCR, February 13, 2023 edition, and , “América Latina ante la solicitud de opinión consultiva a la justicia internacional sobre la situación en Palestina”, Portal de la UCR, February 13, 2023 edition, and in particular the section “El voto de los Estados de América Latina en este 2022: Guatemala y Costa Rica únicos en votar en contra”. Text available here.
Note 5: It is interesting to note that, of the 193 Member States of the United Nations, it was Norway that came up with the initiative of requesting an advisory opinion from the ICJ in isolation at first, managing it with remarkable success on the part of its diplomatic apparatus. As is well known, Norway is not a member state of the EU, which allows its diplomats to take actions that EU members are not always completely free to carry out successfully. It should be noted that this move was officially announced on October 29, 2024 from Oslo (see official statement). The date of October 29, 2024 coincides with the formal adoption of a law in Israel to declare UNRWA’s activities illegal, which unleashed a wave of condemnation. Among the many official positions rejecting the law adopted in Israel, we refer our esteemed readers to the joint statement). In the official communiqué from Costa Rica we read that:
Besides, the legislation approved by the Knesset sets an extremely worrying precedent for the work of the United Nations and all the organizations of the multilateral system and could imply a breach by Israel of at least one of the provisional measures imposed by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
For its part, the Presidency of the United Nations Security Council (Switzerland) adopted a statement on behalf of its 15 members on October 30, 2024, in which it expressed its deep concern (see full text) regarding the future of UNRWA activities in the occupied Palestinian territory. It is very likely that, had a resolution been voted on, the US delegation would have found a way to veto it (or to substantially limit its effects from a legal point of view so as not to harm Israel).
Note 6: As is now customary in this type of United Nations contest, an observer will recognize, among the votes against, the small “hard core” of States that systematically oppose any text in favor of Palestine, and which usually included, before October 7, 2023, Australia, Canada, the Marshall Islands, Israel, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and of course, the unconditional ally the United States. In general, this small nucleus manages to attract some occasional and circumstantial votes (from Europe, Africa and Central America). One example among many is when, in November 2012, the General Assembly recognized Palestine as a “non-member observer state”, adopting resolution A/Res/67/19 (138 votes in favor, 9 against and 41 abstentions) target=“_blank” rel=“noreferrer noopener”>A/Res/67/19 (138 votes in favor, 9 against and 41 abstentions), this strange association of states was joined by Panama and the Czech Republic (see official United Nations communiqué). In the same way (9 votes against), in a vote in the General Assembly on the obligation not to move embassies to Jerusalem that took place in December 2017, with 128 votes in favor and 35 abstentions (see note on the subject). This extremely curious “coalition”, according to the term used by the Washington Post in 2012 (see text), with its 7 votes against, as opposed to 156 votes in favor and 15 abstentions (see detail of the vote). Far from being a circumstantial alliance, the ties that bind its members appear to be those of a real, lasting and fairly solid front that persists over time. In 2022, these links reappeared during the vote on the resolution entitled “Peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine” A/77/L.26, adopted on November 30, 2022 by 153 votes in favor, 9 against and 10 abstentions (see detail of the vote during which Hungary and Liberia joined the aforementioned ‘coalition’, with Australia finally abstaining). This small group can sometimes be even smaller: one of the most modest expressions in terms of the number of votes of the so-called “coalition” (4 votes: United States, Israel, Marshall Islands and Micronesia) is undoubtedly this resolution voted on in October 2003 on the construction of the wall built by Israel in Palestinian territory, adopted with 144 votes in favor and only 4 against (see the official statement of the United Nations).
Note 7: Regarding the decision to move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem by the then President Cartes in Paraguay in May 2018 (under strong pressure from the United States for Paraguay to join the United States with embassies in Jerusalem) and then the decision of the new Paraguayan President Mario Abdo Benitez to return it without further ado to Tel Aviv a few months later, see BOEGLIN N., “ Paraguay’s courageous decision to re-establish its Embassy in Tel Aviv: a brief putting into perspective”, published on September 11, 2018. Text available here.
Note 8: See, for example, this article published in the magazine of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in 2020: TALBOT R., “Automating occupation: Implications of the deployment of facial recognition technologies in the occupied Palestinian territory”, Journal of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), 2020. Full text of the article available here. As well as this report published in Israel in 2024 by a group of investigative journalists: “ ‘Lavender’: the AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza”, Magazine+972, April 3, 2024 edition. Text available here. On April 15, 2024, a group of United Nations human rights experts condemned the use of artificial intelligence in Gaza to commit “domicide”: see full text of this statement, which has received little attention in the international press.
Note 9: See the draft resolution S/PV.7354 minutes). Due to strong pressure from the United States and Israel on the other members of the Security Council, the number of affirmative votes necessary (9) to be considered vetoed by the United States as such was not achieved: see in this regard our article entitled ”The result of the vote on Palestine in the Security Council: balance and perspectives”, published on the specialized site of DerechoalDia, explaining Nigeria’s sudden change of mind a few hours before the vote. In his speech (the full text of which is recommended in the minutes S/PV.7354 ), the Palestinian representative said that: “We reiterate in this Council Chamber that it is essential that Israel, the occupying Power, be held accountable for its violations of international law, including humanitarian law and human rights law, and for its transgressions of United Nations resolutions. Such defiance can no longer be justified or tolerated. There can be no excuse for denying another people their right to self-determination, as was reaffirmed very eloquently this month in the General Assembly through the vote on the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, which received the overwhelming support of 181 Member States of the Assembly (page 13).
Grade A+: See BOEGLIN N., “Gaza / Israel: ICC arrest warrants against the Prime Minister and (former) Defense Minister of Israel and a Hamas leader. Scope and prospects”, November 21, 2024. Text available here. In addition to the strangeness of the content of the official statement from Costa Rica, France issued an extremely questionable official statement: see MAISON R., “France, l´amitié avec Israël comme excuse de la violation du droit international”, Oriente XXI, December 19, 2024 edition. Text available here.
In a note that we published for the French-speaking public on the arrest warrants confirmed by the ICC on November 21, and entitled ‘Gaza / Israël : la portée des mandats d’arrêt délivrés récemment par la Cour Pénale Internationale (CPI) et la surprenante réaction officielle de la France’ we took the liberty of explaining that:
Cette ligne jurisprudentielle appliquée aux visites de chefs d´Etat étrangers en France mérite une explication un peu moins juridique que nous allons tenter de donner : on peut serrer la main de tout chef d´Etat étranger sur le perron de l’Elysée, y ajouter les accolades de rigueur, sourires affables et poses devant les journalistes, et ce chef d’Etat bénéficie sur le territoire de la France de l’immunité accordée à tout chef d’Etat. Et ce même si il est suspecté de commettre un génocide, des crimes de guerre, des crimes contre l’humanité ou d’autres violations graves des droits de l´homme. A la question que toute personne peut légitimement se faire “Mais,… ils sont nombreux ces chefs d’Etat étrangers?”, on peut répondre qu’il y en a effectivement un bon nombre. Par contre, et dans ce cas le nombre est bien moindre, lorsque ces accusations ont été soigneusement examinées et méticuleusement documentées par le Procureur de la CPI, puis revues méthodiquement par trois juges de la CPI, et que ce chef d’Etat étranger fait finalement l’objet d’un mandat d’arrêt délivré par une Chambre préliminaire de la CPI, le droit international s’impose automatiquement aux autorités françaises en vertu du Statut de Rome : on procède alors à la capture de ce même chef d’Etat s’il se trouve en France par les autorités nationales compétentes, et on le remet sans tarder aux juges de la CPI à La Haye. Fini le temps des accolades devant les caméras.
