The Current - Is Israel flouting international law by blocking Gaza aid?

Episode Date: May 8, 2025

Israel has blocked any humanitarian aid from entering Gaza for two months, with aid agencies now warning that thousands of children are experiencing severe malnutrition. Matt Galloway talks to lawyer Michael Byers about what Israel’s obligations are under international law, and Moumen al-Natour, a lawyer who has organized public demonstrations against Hamas in Gaza.

When a body is discovered 10 miles out to sea, it sparks a mind-blowing police investigation. There's a man living in this address in the name of a deceased. He's one of the most wanted men in the world. This isn't really happening. Officers are finding large sums of money. It's a tale of murder, skullduggery and international intrigue. So who really is he? I'm Sam Mullins and this is Sea of Lies from CBC's Uncovered.

Available now. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is the current podcast. It has been more than two months since Israel cut off humanitarian aid to Gaza. Supplies and food have not been allowed to enter the strip since March the 2nd. Israel says this is to put pressure on Hamas to release the remaining hostages. The United Nations along with other aid agencies say 10,000 children are experiencing severe malnutrition. Last week 40 countries took part in hearings at the International Court of Justice

looking at Israel's obligations to allow aid and humanitarian assistance into Gaza. Michael Byers is the candidate research chair in global politics and international law at the University of British Columbia. Michael, good morning. Good morning. What legal obligation does Israel have to allow aid into Gaza? Israel has a lot of legal obligations dating back to the 1945 United Nations Charter, the 1948 Genocide Convention, the 1949 Geneva Conventions, all of which point to an obligation to protect civilians during time of armed conflict, to not engage in a siege, to not use hunger and starvation as a weapon of war. This really isn't a question as to whether there is clear international law,

it's a question of whether the Israeli government is willing to uphold international law and what the rest of the world can do if it won't. Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz has said, Israel's policy is clear. No humanitarian aid will enter Gaza and blocking this aid is one of the main pressure levers preventing Hamas from using it as a tool with the population. No one is currently planning to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza and there are no preparations to enable such aid. The UN has accused Israel of, in its words, deliberately weaponizing aid. The foreign ministers of the UK, France and Germany said the situation is intolerable. So go back to that question of international law.

When you take a look at what the Israeli defense minister has said, how does that square or does it with international law? It doesn't seem to square with international law. And I'm being careful here because I'm not a judge. I'm not going to say definitively that Israel or any individual almost certainly engaged in mass violations of international law starting on October 7th, 2023. And yet, international humanitarian law does not require reciprocity. So no matter how horrific Hamas has behaved, Israel is still required to uphold Israel is still required to uphold the rules itself. Although Israel has not ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, that court has deemed that it has jurisdiction

over actions in Gaza, and the minister's statements certainly look like an intent to commit genocide. We're talking about the most fundamental rules of our international system. Israel seems to be violating them. It's threatening 2 million people with starvation and deportation. It doesn't get any more serious than this. Where does the law draw the line between the right for Israel to defend itself against Hamas

in the wake of the attacks of the 7th of October and the rights of Palestinians in Gaza under humanitarian law. Well, first of all, the right of self-defense is, is part of a separate body of international law, the law governing the recourse to force based in the United Nations charter and the inherent right of self-defense. But even that right requires proportionality. So your listeners have to ask whether several thousand Israelis being massacred in Israel, whether that justifies imposing starvation upon two million Palestinians, most of them innocent, many of them women and

children. So there is a proportionality element there. But separate from that, parallel to that, there are rules of international humanitarian law set out in the 1949 Geneva Conventions, which Israel has ratified. And those are very clear that an occupying power must respect the humanitarian obligations that come with that status, that you must not use starvation as a weapon of war, that you are not allowed to cause people, to coerce people, to force people to leave their homeland, to be deported, which is what some Israeli ministers are now talking about. I have some sympathy for Israel. I've taught in Israel, I've taught international humanitarian law at the University of Tel

Aviv, but what they are doing right now sends off all kinds of alarm bells in my head. These look like egregious violations of fundamental rules. Beyond you, I mean, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to, in its words, ensure the unhindered provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance. This came from the case that was brought by South Africa accusing Israel of acts of genocide. What are the consequences for Israel not adhering to that order? That case is still working its way through the legal system, but the order was to make sure that aid and humanitarian assistance was delivered. What are the consequences for not doing that? Well, there are specific consequences for certain individuals. So, the International Criminal Court

has issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The focus of that warrant is the siege. Broader to that, Israel might think that it can do what it wants, that what the international community thinks doesn't matter. But Israel is destroying its reputation internationally. It is violating fundamental rules. It is demonstrating that it is not trustworthy. The implications of this loss of reputation are not necessarily obvious, but they will be felt for a long time. For example, people choosing not to go to Israel for tourism purposes, people not engaging in contracts with Israeli companies, Israeli diplomats not being invited to all important opportunities for networking

and dialogue at the United Nations. There are all kinds of consequences that come from making yourself a pariah state, and Israel is close to becoming a pariah state as a result of these decisions by the Netanyahu government. You wrote a really interesting piece in the Globe and Mail in which you talked about what

unfolded over the course of a semester in your class at UBC. And it speaks to the fact that there are populations that feel very strongly on all sides of this issue and that, you know, your students were articulating that. Canada has a new government. Just finally, before I let you go,

what are you wanting to see from the Prime Minister, Mark Carney, when it comes to this conflict and what you have talked about? Well, the thing that I taught my students and that they agreed with is that you have to listen if you want to learn, and there are no sharp black and whites when it comes to these issues. But at the same time, it's important to be able

to criticize international actors when they behave in egregious manner. And so in this situation, yes, Hamas behaved terribly. Hamas continues to behave terribly. But that cannot justify the deliberate use of starvation against millions of innocent people. And so I ask your listeners to go beyond the actual conflict and think about Palestinian children who are paying a severe price as Israel exercises a right of self-defense in what looks like a grossly disproportionate way. It's partly a moral issue,

it's partly a legal issue, but at some point, Canada has to stand up and say to Israel, look, this is not okay. Michael, we'll leave it there. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Thank you. Michael Byers is Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at UBC. I'm Sarah Trelevin, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody.

Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's baby.

It's a long story. Settle in. Available now. In a rare public demonstration, hundreds of Palestinians came together at the end of March in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza and called for the removal of Hamas. It is the boldest challenge to that group in years. Hamas has been in charge of the Gaza Strip since 2007. There have been no elections since then.

Mouman el-Natur was just 11 years old when Hamas came to power. He co-founded We Want to Live. It's a grassroots youth movement that pushed back against Hamas rule in 2019. He's now 30. He was working as a lawyer before the war started. I spoke with Moman Al-Natur from Gaza City with the help of a translator who is based in Washington and began by asking him what the last year and a half has been like for him.

The situation is from bad to worst. The war destroyed us all. We are looking and always hoping to have a place, a safe zone where we live in that doesn't have the two sides of the conflict, meaning Hamas and Israel. How are you able to get food, for example? It's been two months of a blockade of food and other supplies coming into Gaza. How difficult is it to get food, for example? It's been two months of a blockade of food and other supplies coming into Gaza.

How difficult is it to get food? So, it's even during the ceasefire time where the aides used to come to Gaza. We used to buy these aides from the black market. And currently, there are no products in the market available. There are few, and these no products in the market available there are few and these few products in the market are extremely expensive unbelievably expensive there was a ceasefire and you wrote in the Washington Post that the hostilities beginning were a crisis terrible news

for everyone in Gaza except for Hamas. Tell me more about that. Why did you say that? During the ceasefire, Hamas get back on the ground. They usually underground, they go on ground, they start to recruit more people. The most important thing, they control the aid, they confiscate aid, they resell these aids in a high prices during the ceasefire Hamas was able to Kill some of their opponents. They were able to go up the ground and resell the aids that was Said that were sent to the Gazans

for free from Many countries and then Hamas would take it and resell it. Hamas want the world to think that all Gazans support Hamas, while in reality we the Gazans we refuse Hamas. We need a new government and when I say a new government, I want a government that is not controlled by Hamas and is not controlled by Fatah. Tell me more about that. You have said the world thinks that Gaza is Hamas and Hamas is Gaza. What does the world get wrong about Hamas?

So many people think that Hamas was elected democratically with an election that have integrity, which is wrong. During the 2007 coup. Hamas killed all of their opponents and in any opportunities where we push to democratize the institution in Gaza and call for election, Hamas was always postponing that and they were not interested in that. So Hamas was not an option for us as Gazans, Hamas has been forced on us and they use blood to strengthen their grip on Gaza Strip. We heard the sound of demonstrations in northern Gaza against Hamas. How widespread is that sentiment in Gaza right now?

The demonstration when they first started, they were big, huge and widespread, but they did not get the media attention that they need. Then later when Hamas killed some of the protesters and when the protesters started to see that there are a lack of media attention to the protest movement in Gaza, we can say that Hamas at this stage was able to bury this wave of protest movement in Gaza because the people were terrorized by the killing. How have you been helping organize these demonstrations against Hamas? Just want to add here that I started organizing started co-organizing protest movement since 2019 during the We Want to Live protest movement and now recently I worked in coordinating with some of the

same leaders that they went in 2019 against Hamas in Beit Lahya, a region to protest against Hamas and the main reason was also that people, they don't wanna be displaced again. And they are afraid that after they've been displaced from south to north, from north to south, the only solution to end their misery is to end the rule of Hamas. And this is why people were protesting.

They're sending a signal that we don't want Hamas anymore. Some of the people who have been protesting against Hamas have been killed by Hamas, they have been tortured. How dangerous is it for you to speak out against Hamas? Anyone with a little bit of sanity would be afraid from Hamas, but we lost everything and we have been displaced many times over the course of the recent war. So now if we want to be displaced again, we cannot because we don't have the money even to transport ourselves and it's not me only, majority of Gazans are like this. So this is we lost everything. Why should we be afraid? Hamas says that there is no point in it negotiating with Israel if Israel does not end

what it calls the hunger war against Gaza and if it extends its military operations in Gaza. Do you think Hamas wants to see an end to this war? Hamas want the time to go back before October 7, where they were in a totalitarian, radical way controlling all of Gaza, making a lot of revenues from taxes and from AIDS, in order to build tunnels and continue their war. So I don't think Hamas is interested in negotiation. All what they are interested in is to stay in power and making wealth and money on the blood of the Palestinian people.

What about Israel? Do you think Israel wants an end to this war? Well, they are as extreme as will and they don't want to end the war. But there are other ministers, other officials who doesn't want Israel to be fighting all over. They are not like Smutrich. So we are hoping that those moderate elements within the Israeli government can work on that and ending the war.

There have been huge protests in the United States and Canada on campuses and beyond around this war. And you wrote in the Washington Post, despite the headlines our protests have generated, the organized pro-Palestinian network in the United States has not yet risen to the challenge of supporting Gazans in our push for freedom from the tyranny of Hamas. What would you want from those people

who are protesting the war? The protest movement, they have supported more or benefited Hamas more than us, more than the Palestinian cause, more than benefiting the Gazan civilians who are languishing behind fires. Did these protesters went in a demonstration calling on Gazans who are suffering, who are besieged to be having a safe exit to leave, Those who want to leave, can they leave out? Even if I live in a tent, I want to be living in a safe zone. I want to live in an area that Hamas is not controlling and that I'm not afraid that

I will be killed by an Israeli bombardment. They have to know that the protesters, that we are humans, we get hungry, we get thirsty and stop looking at us as idols. You know, where the Palestinian fighters, the Palestinian struggle, that dehumanizes. We are asking them to look into this humanitarian aspect where we are hungry, we get cold, we get hot, and we need food, we need medicine, we need all of that. It's not this image of a mortal Palestinian resistance that these campus students are supporting. Just to be clear, you believe that the protests supported

or gave more support to Hamas than to Palestinian civilians? When the protest movements in the US, Canada, Europe started, Hamas felt more euphoric and they felt that all the world is supporting us. And that contributed to the fact that Hamas did not take the negotiation on the ceasefire seriously and they started to delay it. And Hamas, they don't differentiate. They think maybe some of these protesters are supporting the Palestinian as a human, but Hamas took all the credit out of these demonstrations.

What is the solution for Gaza and for the Palestinian people at this point? What is your dream for an end to this war and what might be on the other side of it? I think the rule of Hamas and not seeing any militia presence in Gaza. Starting a government from the youth, from the Gazans that is not ideologically Hamas or ideologically Fatah. And then when we have a government and then we start to negotiate with the Israeli to have a sustainable, peaceful solution where we have two states. You're part of that youth.

You're 30 years old. Do you have hope for the future yourself? Of course. Of course I have hope. I have dreams. Every day when I woke up in the morning, I always think that we need to bring Gaza into prosperity and end the conflict and we need just to live as human beings, as a group, as people and me personally in a personal level.

We are not going to stop dreaming. Moaman, thank you very much for speaking with us. Thank you Moaman for talking with us. Moaman Al Mu'min, for talking with us. You're welcome. Mu'min al-Natur is a lawyer and co-founder of the We Want to Live movement that he started against Hamas in 2019. He was in Gaza City. We spoke through a translator.