Deployment of armed US mercenaries under guise of aid relief in Gaza ’unlawful’: Intl. lawyer
A prominent human rights lawyer and former director of the New York Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights says the deployment of armed US mercenaries to assist the Israeli regime in the occupation of the Gaza Strip is itself unlawful under international law.
Craig Mokhiber said in a statement with a photo attached on Monday that “American mercenaries landed in Tel Aviv to pretend to hand out aid before cocking their guns.”
“Even without further crimes (which are inevitable) their mere presence under these terms implicates them in the crimes of aggression and collective punishment, and in the denial of the jus cogens right to self-determination.”
Mokhiber said such a bogus humanitarian scheme does not relieve them of individual accountability.
“Perfidiously framing their presence as part of a bogus humanitarian scheme does not relieve them of individual accountability, and may also render them guilty of the war crime of perfidy. In sum, they have become part of the mechanism of repression for personal monetary gain, and they are accountable as such.”
Media reports earlier said a US-backed humanitarian organization will start work in Gaza by the end of May under an aid distribution plan.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a US-supported NGO, said it would begin distributing humanitarian aid in Gaza this month after talks with Israeli authorities.
It said it had asked Israel to secure distribution points in northern Gaza, and that Israel had agreed.
An Israeli official recently said that the plan “will include, among other things, the conquest of the Gaza Strip and the holding of the territories, moving the Gaza population south for their protection.”
“It is dangerous, driving civilians into militarized zones to collect rations, threatening lives, including those of humanitarian workers, while further entrenching forced displacement.”
Analysts, activists and aid agencies have described the US-Israeli plan for aid relief in Gaza as “mockery” of humanitarian law.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, Gisha, an Israeli NGO, said the aid plan in the besieged Gaza Strip “is designed to bring about the forced displacement of the population.”
“The plan is the next step in a string of moves aimed at consolidating control over the Strip and strangling the population and anyone trying to provide them relief,” Gisha said.
International aid agencies have already warned that Israeli plans to control aid distribution in Gaza, including the US-backed proposal, will only add to the suffering in the devastated Palestinian territory.
Israel’s far-right ruling coalition, led by prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has embraced Trump’s proposals on Gaza to displace Palestinians permanently outside the territory and turn it into a seaside real-estate development.
Arab states have rejected the plan, and the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has called it ethnic cleansing.
Most Gazans have been displaced at least once during 19 months of war between Israel and Hamas.
Israel blocked all aid from entering Gaza on March 2, before resuming its campaign of genocide on March 18 after talks to prolong a six-week ceasefire collapsed.
Recently in Qatar, US President Donald Trump made comments to reporters after a roundtable with business leaders.
“Gaza has been a territory of death and destruction for many years,” Trump said.
“I have concepts for Gaza that I think are very good — make it a freedom zone. Let the United States get involved and make it just a freedom zone.”
Trump described aerial images of the widespread destruction from Israeli airstrikes on Gaza.
“There’s practically no building standing. It’s not like you’re trying to save something,” he said.
Despite global outcry to end the “genocidal” assault on the people of Gaza, the Israeli regime recently approved a plan that could lead to the capture of the “entire Gaza Strip.”
