Experts say both sides appear to be committing war crimes

GAZA/JERUSALEM • The Israeli missile that slammed into a Palestinian apartment exacted a shocking toll: eight children and two women killed as they celebrated a major Muslim holiday. It was one of the deadliest episodes of the intense war between Israel and Palestinian militants that has raged for nearly a week.

Israel said a senior Hamas commander was the target of the attack last Friday.

Graphic video footage showed Palestinian medics stepping over rubble that included children's toys and a Monopoly board game as they evacuated bloodied victims from the pulverised building. The only survivor was an infant boy.

"They weren't holding weapons, they weren't firing rockets, and they weren't harming anyone," said the boy's father, Mr Mohammed al-Hadidi.

Civilians are paying an especially high price in the latest bout of violence between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, raising urgent questions about how the laws of war apply to the conflagration: which military actions are legal, what war crimes are being committed and who, if anyone, will ever be held to account.

Experts say both sides appear to be violating those laws. Hamas has fired more than 3,000 rockets towards Israeli cities and towns, a clear war crime.

And Israel, although it says it takes measures to avoid civilian casualties, has subjected Gaza to such an intense bombardment, killing families and flattening buildings, that it probably constitutes a disproportionate use of force - also a war crime.

No legal adjudication is possible in the heat of battle. But some facts are clear. Israeli airstrikes and artillery barrages on Gaza, an impoverished and densely packed enclave of about two million people, killed at least 192 Palestinians, including 92 women and children, between last Monday and Sunday evening, producing stark images of destruction that have reverberated around the world.

In the other direction, Hamas missiles have rained over Israeli towns and cities, sowing fear and killing at least 10 Israeli residents, including two children - a greater toll than during the last war, in 2014, which lasted more than seven weeks.

"The narrative around civilian casualties takes on a bigger importance than normal, perhaps even bigger than the numbers, because it goes to the moral legitimacy of the two sides," said professor of public international law Dapo Akande at Oxford University's Blavatnik School of Government.

It may not look it, but there are rules to govern the carnage. The laws of war - a collection of international treaties and unwritten laws, also known as international humanitarian law - govern the behaviour of combatants.

"There's been an utter disregard for civilian life that stems from the decades of impunity," said Mr Omar Shakir, Israel director for Human Rights Watch.

The top prosecutor with the International Criminal Court, which in February announced an investigation into possible war crimes by both Hamas and Israeli soldiers, warned last Friday that both sides in the current conflict could be subjects of future prosecutions.

"These are events that we are looking at very seriously," the prosecutor, Ms Fatou Bensouda, told Reuters.

However, the criminal court, which Israel and the United States do not recognise, faces a host of political and logistical obstacles, and it could be years before any Israeli or Palestinian is put on trial - if ever.

NYTIMES