Human Rights Watch on Civilians in the Crossfire

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, HOST: Now, with so much of the focus on the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza, mass casualties, population displacement, and destruction, Gaza authorities say it’s “unlike anything seen in previous aggressions.” That’s their word. Human Rights Watch program director Sari Bashi joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss the increasingly grave situation on the ground in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

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HARI SREENIVASAN, INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Christiane, thanks. Sari Bashi, thanks so much for joining us. Just recently, the U.N. Human Rights Commission said that the evacuation that Israel has ordered of the Palestinians would be a forcible transfer of civilians. Now, does that constitute a human rights violation?

SARI BASHI, PROGRAM DIRECTOR, HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: Yes. So, while warring armies are encouraged to warn civilians where such warning can actually help keep themselves safe, the evacuation order that the Israeli military issued on Friday does not fit that category and it risks for civil transfer.

And Friday, the Israeli army ordered a million people, nearly half of whom are children, to leave Northern Gaza, that’s half the population, and evacuate to the south. But there’s no safe place to go to because they continued bombing the south, and there’s no safe way to get there because they continued bombing, even the evacuation routes that they designated.

So, under those circumstances, it’s not effective warning. It’s not protecting civilians and it runs the risk of becoming forcible transfer, in particular, because the Israeli military also encouraged Palestinians to flee to Egypt. 70 percent of the people living in Gaza are refugees from what is now Israel.

So, some of the older people who were fleeing their homes on Friday remembered 75 years ago, fleeing homes in Southern Israel as the Israeli army that approached. And they also remember that they were not allowed to come back.

SREENIVASAN: So, one of the consequences here, if Israel continues to carry these actions out, because right now they seem to have a military plan in place and it’s a matter of time before they launch what would be a ground offensive.

BASHI: So, none of this is inevitable. The United States is supplying the Israeli military with $3.8 billion in military aid every year, and they’re now rushing additional weapons. They’re also providing Israel with political cover and a diplomatic cover.

The United States has an opportunity to be very specific. In telling Israel that it needs to protect civilians in Gaza. And those specifics would, first of all, be to cancel the evacuation order and to protect civilians, irrespective of where they are.

Many people in Northern Gaza did not leave either because they couldn’t, there are older people, there are people with disabilities, there are hospital patients, because the main hospital in Gaza is in the evacuation zone, or they chose not to because they were facing impossible choices, and the conditions in the south are not good, to say the least. Those people retain their civilian protections. So, if the Israeli military does launch a ground invasion, it may not target or indiscriminately attack them.

The second thing the United States government needs to ask the Israeli government tell the Israeli government to do immediately is to restore fuel, electricity, water, and food supplies to Gaza. Those have been cut since October 7th.

Collective punishment, which is what denying the supplies are, and forcible transfer are war crimes. And I want to be very clear, what Hamas led fighters did on October 7th, it was an unspeakable war crime, they massacred Israeli civilians. They took hostage children, people with disabilities, babies, older people. It was unspeakable. But the fact that the other side is committing war crimes doesn’t mean that you get to commit war crimes. And it needs to be very clear that Israel has to protect civilians in Gaza who are suffering very, very difficult circumstances.

SREENIVASAN: When you look at this from the outside, it seems like the ideas about the laws of war, what’s fair, what’s not fair, seem to have been written for an era where you could tell who the soldiers were because they were wearing this color uniform and they were standing opposite a field from you. But now, you know, one of the concerns that Israel has is, how do I tell who’s a civilian and how do I tell who’s not?

BASHI: I see it a bit differently. When you cut water to a population of 2.2 million people, nearly half of whom are children, you know, exactly what that’s going to do. That’s not about security. That’s collective punishment and it’s matched by statements by the defense minister, saying that they are going to have a total siege in Gaza.

When you drop weapons in densely populated areas, explosive weapons that have wide area effects, it is predictable that you will kill civilians. It is predictable that you will kill children. And that’s what’s happened. Nearly 3,000 people in Gaza have been killed, about a third of them children.

Since October 7th, Israeli airstrikes have been killing 100 children a day in Gaza. There’s no — the problem is not the laws of war, the problem is the lack of consistency, the very same outrage that appropriately made Israelis, Americans so horrified by what Hamas led fighters did to Israeli civilians on October 7th needs to be the same principle that applies to civilians in Gaza.

At Human Rights Watch, we’re trying to hold open a narrow space of universal principles. Civilians need to be protected. It doesn’t matter if they’re Israeli, it doesn’t matter if they’re Palestinian, children need to be protected. That’s not hard, or it shouldn’t be hard.

SREENIVASAN: Recently, Hamas posted video on one of the hostages that they’re holding. What are the conditions that Hamas needs to meet with those people? How should they be treated during this time?

BASHI: So, the first thing that Hamas should do is unconditionally release all the civilians it’s holding hostage. Hostage taking is a war crime, it’s abhorrent. And we know that the hostages they have include people with disabilities, include older people. I think the oldest one is 85. I think the youngest one is nine months old. They need to be released immediately and unconditionally. So long as they are in Hamas custody, they need to be treated humanely, and that’s not what’s happening.

Last week, the Hamas military wing threatened to execute civilians if the airstrikes continue. That in itself is a war crime.

SREENIVASAN: You have been living in and studying what’s been happening in the Middle East for decades now, and I wonder, I guess, just as a Jewish woman who is married to a Palestinian man, what’s been going through your head for the past week?

BASHI: You know, when this all happened, first happened on Saturday, I had to address my children’s questions, why was their cousin so scared, why was their grandmother trying to evacuate, what was happening? And I told my daughter what I always told her, that there are abuses taking place against Palestinians, but that there is never any justification for killing people, and that some people who oppose what the Israeli government is doing to Palestinians killed a lot of people, and that was horrific.

My daughter gets it. My daughter understands that people are people, and that you don’t have different standards for Israelis or Palestinians. She understands that we’re all human beings because she loves people on both sides.

And one of the things I’m worried about is the us versus them discourse that we’re seeing, certainly in Israel, but also in the United States, it becomes a, but they’re worse than we are. I mean, that’s neither constructive nor particularly normal. We have obligations as human beings to protect civilians and to protect other human beings. And that’s the only way we’re getting out of this, because this violence didn’t come in a vacuum, it came after decades of repression Palestinians by the Israeli government that in no way justifies what was done. It’s important to recognize that if we want this to stop, we need to address those root causes the Israeli government for decades. Has been engaging in forcible transfer of Palestinians in the West Bank, taking their land, setting it aside for Jewish settlers that all needs to stop the day after this war ends. And right now, the United States government has particular responsibilities to emphasize those universal principles, the principles that my nine-year-old gets, but unfortunately, big grownups don’t seem to get.

SREENIVASAN: So, what can be done, considering at this point, there have been perhaps war crimes committed, but by the time any of these war crimes are prosecuted, the damage is already done? Do we have any kind of labors or mechanisms where we can prevent them from continuing to happen?

BASHI: So, first of all, we have asked the International Criminal Court prosecutor to issue preventive warnings. There’s an ongoing investigation, both of crimes by Hamas and other armed groups of Gaza, as well as by the Israeli military, and there’s an opportunity for him to issue a warning saying, we are concerned that further crimes are being committed, please stop, and that can have an effect. The U.S. government can do the same thing.

SREENIVASAN: President Biden is supposed to be in Israel for a few hours. What should he be saying there?

BASHI: You should say to cancel the evacuation order from Friday, stop dropping explosive weapons in densely populated urban areas, because we know if you do that, you will kill civilians, and immediately restore supplies of food, fuel, water and electricity. That’s for right now. And later on, we can talk about some of the root causes of what’s going on right now.

And other countries should look at their atrocity prevention measures. You know, countries have measures where they, they look at statements of concern by different governments, including the statements we’ve seen recently from Israeli officials, and they have mechanisms they can use to try to reign that in, to express strong concern. I can very much understand how horrified people and also policymakers in the United States and Europe are by what Hamas-led fighters did to Israeli civilians, but they need to be very clear that what’s happening now in Gaza cannot continue. Civilians need to be protected, full stop.

SREENIVASAN: What do you expect to happen next?

BASHI: I think a lot of it depends on what the United States decides to do. I think if the United States decides that it will rein in the Israeli military and ask them to, for example, restore supplies to civilians to protect civilians, I think there’s a chance that things could get better. If they don’t, I’m very worried.

SREENIVASAN: It seems, in some ways, human nature that when you are hurt, you turn around and try to hurt others, right? That you punch back or you feel like the best defense is a good offense. How do you stop that cycle from perpetuating?

BASHI: You adhere to basic principles. You know, you asked if the laws of war are still valid, if they’re still appropriate, absolutely. It’s — you know, there are books written about it, but it’s actually very simple. You have to protect civilians. You have to protect the people who have nothing to do with the fighting. And that — it’s — that’s the principle that children can understand. When I tell my daughter, I know your brother hit you, but that doesn’t mean you could hit him back. I think we can have a very simple message to the Israeli government. I know Hamas committed unspeakable war crimes against Israeli civilians, that doesn’t mean you can commit war crimes against Palestinian civilians.

SREENIVASAN: Tell me a little bit about what it’s like for your kids growing up in the West Bank with an Israeli parent and a Palestinian parent. What is their kind of day-to-day existence like, where they see the effects of being kind of from two sides?

BASHI: I think it makes them better human beings. My children understand that there are principles of basic humanity and they understand that because they love Palestinians and they love Israeli Jews. They have two sets of grandparents, they have relatives, they have friends and they’re able to walk that beautiful, but narrowing space where human beings are human beings. And I think we have an opportunity to follow in their footsteps. We have an opportunity to apply those same basic principles to the policies and decisions that are being made right now. I’m very proud of my children. And I think that certainly some policy makers have a lot to learn from them.

SREENIVASAN: This operation seems to be much larger than what happened back in 2014. And I’m wondering what your biggest concerns are about the scale of what’s happening now.

BASHI: I’m worried that there’s not going to be much left. This is all absolutely unprecedented. The massacres and hostage taking of October 7th were the worst civilian massacres in Israeli history and there are now at least 199 Israelis being held in captivity in Gaza. The destruction being done in Gaza, both of civilian infrastructure, hospitals, schools, roads, but more to the point in terms of people’s lives is irreversible. And we’re moving to a place where very basic principles of humanity are being eroded very, very quickly. And that’s why we need to move very quickly to stop that.

SREENIVASAN: Program Director for Human Rights Watch, Sari Bashi, thanks so much for joining us.

BASHI: Thank you.

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