Written by Bryan Atinsky, Alternative Information Center (AIC)
On Thursday, 17 May, former Israeli Prime Minister and present Chairman of the Likud Party, Binyamin Netanyahu, called on the Israeli government to impose a blockage, and cut the supply of water and electricity to the Gaza Strip, an act that would be a grave and blatant breach of international humanitarian law, and considered a war crime.
During his speech at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem, commemorating the 30-year anniversary of the party's 1977 rise to power, Netanyahu stated:
"The government can do a lot to protect its people. […] It could evacuate whomever necessary, enact a closure on the Gaza Strip, stop providing services like electricity and water, or decide on a limited invasion of four or five kilometers to distance the range of the Kassams."
The denial of water and electricity to civilians is a form of collective punishment and is illegal under international humanitarian law (Geneva Conventions: Additional Protocol I, Article 75). Moreover, international law specifically forbids the denial of water to civilians during conflict. It states under article 14 of the second protocol of the Geneva Conventions:
"Starvation of civilians as a method of combat is prohibited. It is therefore prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless for that purpose, objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population such as food-stuffs, agricultural areas for the production of food-stuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works" (Geneva Conventions: Additional Protocol II, Article 14).