Shameful. That was the word that Gideon Sa’ar, Israel’s foreign minister, used to describe proceedings at the international court of justice (ICJ) last Monday. The United Nations asked the court to determine whether Israel must allow aid to enter Gaza, two months after it cut it off again just before the ceasefire deal collapsed. Supplies are running out. Unicef says that thousands of children have already experienced acute malnutrition.
Mr Sa’ar’s complaint is that Israel is unfairly targeted. The separate international criminal court case against Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, and Yoav Gallant, the former defence minister, also focuses on the alleged starvation of civilians. It is true that withholding food is a common weapon in war, yet has rarely been the focus of international legal cases, in part because intent is hard to prove. It is the rhetoric of Israeli officials, suggests Dr Boyd van Dijk, an expert on the Geneva conventions, which has changed that.
