Amnesty's Callamard: Events 'signal the end of the rules-based order'

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Foreign Affairs
15 Feb 2024 17:08
1 Shares

Agnes Callamard, the Secretary-General of Amnesty International, explains how the rules-based order began to disintegrate as early as the US' "war on terror".

Palestinians inspect the rubble of the Hasouna family house, which was struck by an Israeli airstrike during an operation to rescue two hostages in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Tuesday, February 13, 2024. (AP)

Following the launch of Operation Al Aqsa Flood, "Israel", according to Dr. Agnès Callamard, a French human-rights activist who is the Secretary-General of Amnesty International, has forcibly displaced Palestinians, creating dire conditions that have left hundreds of thousands without basic human necessities.

According to Callamard, reports indicate that "Israel" has "carried out indiscriminate, disproportionate, and direct attacks on civilians and “civilian objects,” such as schools and hospitals," leaving the death toll at over 28,000 Palestinians with "the majority of them women and children."

In a piece for Foreign Affairs, Callamard noted that the impact on Gaza is catastrophic, with vast sections of the region "pulverized", and a "fifth of its infrastructure and most of its homes are now damaged or destroyed, leaving the region largely uninhabitable."

Significantly, Callamard proclaimed "Israel imposed a prolonged blockade," which amounted to "collective punishment".

Furthermore, she explained that the Israeli occupation is "detaining Gazans in inhumane and degrading conditions, and Israel admits that some of those detained have already died."

Moreover, the Amnesty International official simultaneously noted that "in the West Bank, violence against Palestinians by Israeli forces and settlers has increased markedly."

History in front of our eyes

Today's diplomatic landscape reveals a troubling complicity in the catastrophic human rights and humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza, marking the culmination of years witnessing the erosion of the international rule of law and the global human rights system, Callamard explained.

Furthermore, she noted that this disintegration began significantly after 9/11 when the United States decided to launch the "war on terror," a "campaign that normalized the idea that everything is permissible in the pursuit of 'terrorists'."

"It is as if the grave moral lessons of the Holocaust, of World War II, have been all but forgotten," lamented the Amnesty International official, adding "the very core of the decades-old 'Never Again' principle: its absolute universality, the notion that it protects us all or none of us. This disintegration, so apparent in the destruction of Gaza and the West’s response to it, signals the end of the rules-based order and the start of a new era."

Day 132: 28,663 martyred, 68,395 wounded

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza announced on Thursday that the number of martyred Palestinians on the 132nd day of the Israeli war on the Strip has risen to 28,663, with 68,395 wounded since October 7.

In the past 24 hours, the Israeli occupation forces committed 9 massacres against families in Gaza, killing 87 Palestinians and injuring 104 others, the ministry said.

It added that other victims are still under the rubble, as the IOF are deliberately preventing ambulances and civil defense crews from reaching them.

It is noteworthy that these victims are estimated to be in the hundreds, or by some estimates in the thousands.

Readmore: 'History will not be kind; this war must end': UN relief chief