Anti-Israel Forces Once Again Use Lawfare To Level Frivolous War Crimes Charges at Israel

It appears that Israel is once again being subjected to “lawfare.” Lawfare is another means being used by Israel’s enemies as they seek to delegitimize and isolate the State of Israel on the world scene. Lawfare seeks to flood international and national courts with countless frivolous accusations of Israeli wrongdoing in order to create a false picture of Israel and its actions in the minds of people around the world and to force Israel to defend itself. It doesn’t matter if the charges aren’t true; what matters is that Israel is once again portrayed as an evil, illegitimate, pariah State. The most recent case has just occurred at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.

Several news outlets are reporting that the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate (PJS), and the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) have filed a complaint with the ICC, alleging “systematic targeting” by Israel of four Palestinian journalists, Ahmed Abu Hussein, Yaser Murtaja, Muath Amarneh, and Nedal Eshtayeh.

The complaint, which is not yet available on the ICC website, reportedly alleges that Israel “targeted” these journalists while they were covering demonstrations in Gaza and the so-called “West Bank.” Ahmed Abu Hussein and Yasser Murtaja—who, according to Israel, had multiple identities—died during the April 2018 violent protests in Gaza. “Some 10,000-15,000 Palestinians took part in violent riots in five locations along the length of the border. . . . In addition to trying to breach and cross the barrier, they carried out a number of attacks, including throwing Molotov cocktails and explosives at Israeli soldiers.”

Israel has noted that Abu Hussein was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a designated terrorist organization. Despite his affiliation with a terrorist group, it is important to note that he was being treated in a hospital in Israel when he died on April 25, 2018. The second “journalist,” Yasser Murtaja, “was also an operative in Hamas’ security forces.” Hamas, also a designated terrorist organization, is the anti-Israel terrorist group that runs the Gaza Strip.

In November 2019, Muath Amarneh was hit in the eye by a rubber bullet as he attended an anti-Israel protest near Hebron. He also received treatment in an Israeli hospital. “Israel’s border police said it did not target Amarneh at the protest near the city of Hebron and said it had used ‘nonlethal’ means to disperse the crowd.”

Note that only intentional targeting of civilians in an armed conflict constitutes a war crime, like what is happening in Ukraine, where Russia is targeting schools, hospitals, theaters, train stations, and civilian neighborhoods. Attacking a legitimate military target that might incidentally cause injury or death to civilians is not a war crime. Like the Russians in Ukraine, Hamas and other Palestinian terrorists attack Israeli towns and Israeli civilians with, inter alia, thousands of rockets, mortar rounds, incendiary kites, and arson balloons. Because such weapons cannot be aimed, they cannot discriminate between legitimate military targets and illegitimate targets like civilians. Each unguided rocket and mortar round fired at Israel constitutes a separate war crime.  Yet, Israel, in responding to such criminal attacks on its civilian population and territory, takes every necessary precaution to minimize civilian casualties.

It is also worth noting that intentionally embedding combatants in a nonmilitary target, like members of terrorist organizations using double identities to poses as journalists, is in and of itself a war crime.

No one seems to care about how Hamas and other Palestinian terrorists indiscriminately attack Israel and commit war crimes. In 2018, when the two above-named “journalists” were killed, Israel witnessed some of the most violent attacks in years. One of the rockets struck an Israeli kindergarten – thankfully hours before it would have been filled with innocent children there to learn and play. In addition to the despicable rocket attacks, Palestinian terrorists reportedly used other makeshift weapons like “arson balloons” and “incendiary kites” to set fire to Israeli infrastructure and crops.

Just last year in May, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fired thousands of rockets indiscriminately at Israeli civilian areas after Hamas had given Israel an ultimatum to withdraw its security forces from the Temple Mount and the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in Jerusalem.

This year, tensions began to increase again after mass shootings in Hadera and Tel Aviv by Islamic State and Palestinian gunmen, killing and injuring several Israelis. Hamas labeled the attacks heroic. Last week, Palestinian militants fired rockets into southern Israel after clashes erupted at the Al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount when Israeli forces sought to halt Palestinians from stockpiling stones intended to be thrown at worshipers.

While Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other Palestinian terrorist groups openly and proudly commit war crimes by indiscriminately attacking Israeli civilians and by using innocent women and children from the Gaza Strip and the so-called West Bank as human shields, Israel is forced once again to defend itself not only for responding in order to protect its existence but also against outlandish claims of war crimes before the international community.

We will continue to follow the recent “complaint” filed at the ICC and respond as appropriate.