The Israel-Palestine Conflict: How War and Genocide is an International Disability Justice Issue
As Israel continuously bombs civilians, hospitals, refugee camps, and UN shelters, the international community is calling for a humanitarian ceasefire and warns it is violating norms against genocide.[1] After the October 7th Hamas attack killed 1,200 people, Israel responded by killing over 23,938 people and wounding 60,582 others in Gaza.[2] This blog post adds to the global conversation that war and genocide are inherently intertwined with international disability rights. Through a critical disability justice framework, it also illuminates why, beyond the law, anti-war, anti-occupation, and pro-peace frameworks are the best path forward.
Disability and war encompass disabling events, the debilitation process, and disproportionate impacts of Disabled people.[3] A disabling event is a specific occurrence that creates a disability.[4] Debilitation is a process of slowly wearing down bodies and minds through racial, psychological, physical, and other systemic forms of violence.[5] Although some people may not identify as disabled, debilitation recognizes that people can acquire disabilities as a result of intentional military strategies that foreclose access to essential resources.[6] Recognizing these nuances is imperative to understand how acts of genocide intersect with disability rights and why disability justice inherently demands a world free of violence.
Under Article II of the Genocide Convention, crimes of genocide relevant to this conflict include intentionally killing members of a group, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting group conditions of life in a calculated manner to bring physical destruction, and preventing births.[7] War and armed conflict have a disparate impact on Disabled people.[8] Simultaneously, many disabilities around the world are a result of war, occupation, colonialism, and disparity of resources.[9]
In armed conflict, it is harder and takes longer for people with disabilities to flee violence.[10] International conventions exist to protect people with disabilities in situations where their country is facing armed conflict. Under Article 11 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), all necessary measures must be taken to ensure “the protection and safety of persons with disabilities in situations of risk, including situations of armed conflict.”[11] Israel gave 3-hour notice of 4-hour pauses of bombing,[12] which was insufficient for elders and Disability communities. The ongoing electricity shortages in Gaza prevent residents from being able to charge their scooters, mobility devices, wheelchairs, and other essential devices.[13] The destruction of ramps, assistive devices, and the impact of missiles itself, make it nearly impossible to plan to evacuate in a short turnaround.
In addition to Palestinians who already identified as Disabled, Israel’s strategies rapidly increase the Disability population while destroying healthcare and general infrastructure.[14] During the 2018 Great March of the Return, Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin issued a “break the bones” policy to stop civilian protests.[15] Snipers shot Palestinians in the back of the knee to damage nerves, and in some cases, caused them to lose their legs.[16] Israel's occupation simultaneously created a hospital bed shortage, which caused over 1,000 young Palestinians who needed reconstructive surgery to leave hospitals early.[17] The occupation also restricted movement and access to essential energy, water, and food resources.[18] Disabling events coupled with debilitation tactics make survival increasingly difficult. In the current conflict, Israel’s bombing campaign destroyed hospitals in northern Gaza.[19] Only nine hospitals partially function in the south.[20]
Non-western disability justice frameworks are also important when recognizing the severity of mental and emotional harm caused by war tactics. According to Dr. Samah Jabr, head of Palestine’s Mental Health Services, “PTSD” is a Western concept that is an inaccurate, unjust way to describe the Palestinians’ suffering.[21] “There is no ‘post’ because the trauma is repetitive…ongoing and continuous….we need to be authentic about our experiences and not try to impose on ourselves experiences that are not ours,” Dr. Samah said.[22] In Gaza, there is no end to the traumatizing events, nor a safe space to process them. The debilitation is continuous.
This analysis makes Israel’s violations of Genocide Conventions and CRPD clear. Advocacy groups and countries are increasing pressure on Israel by supporting the South Africa v. Israel Crimes of Genocide case at the International Court of Justice.[23] The global disability community needs to call on signatory states to assert a CRPD violation and uplift the following policy recommendations: insist on a humanitarian ceasefire, stop the United States’ sale of weapons to Israel, and recognize Palestine’s statehood.[24] The lack of these policies enables atrocities to continue. Intersectional, culture-based law, policy, and advocacy will ensure no person, body, or mind is left behind.
Jalyn Radziminski is a staff member of Fordham International Law Journal Volume XLVII.
[1] See WHO, Joint Statement by UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF, WFP, and WHO on humanitarian supplies crossing into Gaza (Oct. 21, 2023), https://www.who.int/news/item/21-10-2023-joint-statement-by-undp--unfpa--unicef--wfp-and-who-on-humanitarian-supplies-crossing-into-gaza. See also UN News, UN agencies make plea for international action to end hospital attacks (Nov. 21, 2023), https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/11/1143492. Organizations like the Center for Constitutional Rights emphasized that Israel is committing genocide of the Palestinian people, and the United States can also be deemed complicit under the Genocide Convention for sending sources in support of Israel’s actions. See Press Release, Ctr. for Const. Rights, Rights Lawyers Release Legal Analysis of U.S. Complicity in Israel’s Unfolding Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza (Oct. 18, 2023) https://ccrjustice.org/home/press-center/press-releases/rights-lawyers-release-legal-analysis-us-complicity-israel-s. See also center for constitutional rights, emergency legal briefing paper Israel’s unfolding crime of genocide of the Palestinian people & u.s. failure to prevent and complicity in genocide at 3,4 (2023), https://ccrjustice.org/sites/default/files/attach/2023/10/Israels-Unfolding-Crime_ww.pdf.
[2] When this blog was first drafted in November, the death toll in Gaza was over 4,000 people. It was less than a month after Israel’s response to the tragic October 7th attack. The death toll has consistently risen throughout the drafting process of this blog. The most recent count of 23,938 dead and 60,582 injured reflects 100 days of war as of January 14, 2024. See Becky Sullivan, The catastrophe in Gaza after 100 days of Israel-Hamas war, by the numbers, npr (Jan. 14, 2024), https://www.npr.org/2024/01/14/1224673502/gaza-numbers-100-days-israel-hamas#:~:text=23%2C938%20dead%20and%2060%2C582%20injured&text=Nearly%208%2C000%20more%20are%20reported,over%20three%20months%20of%20conflict. See also Press Release, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Dec. 20, 2023), https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/huge-gaza-death-toll-likely-be-even-higher-reported; Aaron Boxerman, What We Know About the Death Toll in Israel From the Hamas-Led Attacks, New York Times (Nov. 12, 2023), https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/12/world/middleeast/israel-death-toll-hamas-attack.html.
[3]See Jasbir Paur, Right to Maim at xiv (2017). See also Sami Shalk, Black Disability Politics at 14-5 (2012).
[4]See supra note 3.
[5]See supra note 3.
[6] See Destiny Pitters, Disability and war, briarpatch (Sept. 7, 2022), https://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/disability-and-war?fbclid=IwAR3q_LxcsFyrP2v0rZJZFm-Y5Q1jilsCMAiZLyNyjpt8eswSPRnIywzNGx0.
[7] See supra note 1.
[8] See Human Rights Watch, Persons with Disabilities in the Context of Armed Conflict: Submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (June 8, 2021), https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/06/08/persons-disabilities-context-armed-conflict.
[9] See supra note 6.
[10] See supra note 8.
[11] U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Dec. 13, 2006, 2515 U.N.T.S. 3.
[12] See Israel Expands Daily Combat Pauses to let Civilians Flee, White House Says. New York Times. (Nov. 9, 2023), https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/11/09/world/israel-hamas-war-gaza#israel-hamas-gaza-pause.
[13] See supra note 8. The term Disabled is used because this blog is written from a Disabled lens. Many in the community have claimed that the words “Disability” and “Disabled” are not bad words but rather a political-relational identity. See supra note 6.
[14] Jasbir Paul also mentioned similar concerns and elaborated on the fact that even though it may seem “humanitarian” to injure people with permanent disabilities rather than kill them, systematically occupying territories and destroying hospital, medical supplies, and resource infrastructure can be an insidious strategy to avoid the evade a more accurate reflection of daily death tolls and injuries due to war. See supra note 3.
[15] See supra note 3. See also Ghassan Abu-Sitta & Jasbir Puar, Israel is trying to maim Gaza Palestinians into silence, Al Jazeera (Mar. 31, 2023), https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2019/3/31/israel-is-trying-to-maim-gaza-palestinians-into-sil
ence.
[16] See supra note 15.
[17]See supra note 15.
[18] See A. Kayum Ahmed, Israeli Authorities’ Cutting of Water Leading to Public Health Crisis in Gaza, Human Rights Watch (Nov. 16, 2023), https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/11/16/israeli-authorities-cutting-water-leading-public-health-crisis-gaza.
[19] See Mary Kekatos, No ‘functional’ hospitals in northern Gaza, Just 9 left in south: WHO, Abc News (Dec. 22, 2023), https://abcnews.go.com/International/functional-hospitals-northern-gaza-9-left-south/story?id=105867484.
[20] See id.
[21] See Olivia Goldhill, Palestine’s head of mental health services says PTSD is a western concept, Quartz (Jan. 13, 2019), https://qz.com/1521806/palestines-head-of-mental-health-services-says-ptsd-is-a-western-concept.
[22] See id.
[23]See generally Press Release, ICJ, Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (Jan. 12, 2024), No. 2024/3. See also Which countries back South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at ICJ?, Al Jazeera (Jan. 12, 2024), https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/9/which-countries-back-south-africas-genocide-case-against-israel-at-icj.
[24] All five of the Permanent UN Security Council members are needed to recognize a state. Palestinian statehood is currently debated. Some scholars think an entity becomes a state once it declares itself to be so and as stated in the Montevideo Convention, has a permanent population, defined territory, its own government, and the capacity to enter relations with other states. Others argue that it is not under the constitutive theory, which means that it can only be recognized as a state if the rest of the world recognizes it as such. See supra note 1. See also Clare Roth, Is Palestine considered a state?, Deutsche Welle (Nov. 6, 2023), https://www.dw.com/en/is-palestine-considered-a-state/a-67310981; Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, Dec. 26, 1934, 4 U.T.S. 881.
This is a student blog post and in no way represents the views of the Fordham International Law Journal.