Despite the steadily mounting death toll in Gaza, western politicians are still calling for a “humanitarian pause” in Israel’s assault on Gaza. “Humanitarian” is defined as “seeking to promote human welfare as a primary or pre-eminent good” – but, in Gaza’s case, a “humanitarian pause” in the war in Gaza will have little effect when it comes to promoting human welfare.
As Malak Benslama-Dabdoub, a lecturer in law at Royal Holloway university, has recently pointed out, there is “an important difference between a humanitarian pause and a ceasefire”. A pause is a short-term, localised break in the fighting to allow humanitarian assistance to get through to civilians before fighting starts again. A ceasefire, meanwhile, is part of a political process which would hopefully lead to a permanent end to the fighting.
This is true, but the differences run much deeper and are much more problematic. The argument put forth by the UK’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak, as well as the Labour leader Keir Starmer and others, for a pause rather than a ceasefire is that a ceasefire would allow Hamas to regroup and get stronger while the fighting stopped.
