The world stands at a brutal crossroads, where morality, law, and politics no longer merely clash— they collapse into one another, leaving in their wake a wasteland of shattered credibility. Gaza today is not just a humanitarian disaster, it is a mirror held up to the global order, exposing duplicity and selective morality at every turn.
What began as televised images of civilian slaughter and endless displacement has, in chancelleries and diplomatic briefings, been reduced to formulaic responses: ritual statements of concern, carefully curated legal caveats, and the mechanical drafting of reconstruction plans. The international legal machinery churns out orders, provisional measures, and warrants, yet the killing continues unabated. Every day that passes confirms what survivors have long understood: strategic alliances and the economics of arms weigh heavier than human life, and the promise of “never again” is a hollow refrain.
An extraordinary moment of legal reckoning unfolded in London where an independent Gaza tribunal, chaired by former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, convened 29 expert witnesses, including diplomats and jurists. Their testimonies were stark: the UK, they argued, has not merely failed to prevent atrocity as required by the Genocide Convention, but has actively enabled it.
Intelligence-sharing, shielding parliamentary debate from uncomfortable scrutiny, approving arms sales while evidence of war crimes mounted, and refusing to suspend cooperation with Israeli self-investigations all point to complicity. This is not the story of benign neglect; it is a story of a state erecting legal and political shields around an ally accused of mass atrocity. To characterise this as omission is generous— what we are witnessing is structural collusion. And once complicity hardens into policy, international law itself becomes collateral damage.
If London illustrates one pole of complicity, Washington illustrates another: the weaponisation of justice. The United States recently imposed sanctions on three major Palestinian human-rights organisations— Al-Haq, Al Mezan, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights— precisely because they petitioned the International Criminal Court to investigate Israel’s alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Let us be clear: these groups are not fringe actors; they are the core of civil society’s effort to gather evidence, build legal cases, and keep hope of accountability alive. By designating them as terrorist affiliates and cutting their access to international financial systems, the USA has turned accountability itself into a punishable offence. It is an inversion of justice so stark that it calls into question the very commitment of the USA to the rules-based order it frequently preaches. This move silences petitioners, chokes off documentation, and leaves victims voiceless in a world court already beleaguered by delay.
Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court itself has entered the fray with a gravity not seen in years. In May 2025, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, citing the use of starvation as a weapon of war, deliberate targeting of civilians, and attacks on humanitarian infrastructure.
Its filing states that they are “criminally responsible as individual persons for intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare,” and that they have directed “widespread and systematic attacks against the civilian population in Gaza.” Prosecutor Karim Khan stressed that the warrants were not symbolic but urgent, warning that deliberate obstruction of aid and indiscriminate strikes on population centres cross the line into war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Democracies that persist in double standards must recognise that the cost is not just Gaza’s destruction but their own moral disintegration. The radicalisation bred by impunity will haunt global security for decades. The erosion of legal norms today will be tomorrow’s permission slip for atrocities elsewhere. What Gaza demands of the world is not charity, not rhetoric, but law in action. Anything less is an abdication—and one that history will not forgive.
Yet, despite the weight of these legal moves, geopolitical patrons have already sought to delegitimize the court, echoing a familiar refrain that its jurisdiction is politically tainted. The irony is unbearable: governments that celebrate ICC warrants against African leaders now denounce its legitimacy when the warrants point at Tel Aviv. Law, it appears, is universal until it threatens friends.
Parallel to ICC action, the International Court of Justice has played its role, albeit with cautious language. Responding to South Africa’s genocide application, the ICJ concluded that genocide in Gaza is “plausible” and in January 2025 ordered Israel to “immediately halt” acts that could constitute genocide, “ensure that humanitarian assistance is provided to the population of Gaza,” and “avoid actions that may exacerbate the suffering of civilians.” Those are not gentle suggestions— they are legally binding provisional measures. Yet the ICJ lacks an enforcement arm, and Israel’s near total disregard of these orders has been documented by humanitarian agencies and legal monitors alike. This gap between legal decree and political will is not academic; it is a chasm where human lives are lost daily. Every child that starves, every patient who dies for lack of medicine, every family that sleeps under rubble underscores the irrelevance of “binding” orders when states choose to ignore them with impunity.
The humanitarian catastrophe, meticulously tracked by UN dashboards and aid agencies, adds numbers to the tragedy. According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), Gaza has reached the unimaginable: 100% of its population is in acute food insecurity, with nearly a million— 32%— already facing catastrophic famine conditions. UNICEF and OCHA report widespread child malnutrition, healthcare collapse, and the disintegration of water and sanitation systems. UNRWA’s situation reports warn that famine has already emerged in Gaza City and will spread within weeks. These are not merely statistics; they are the forensic evidence of policy choices. “Starvation is being used as a method” is no hyperbole— it is the reality noted in both the ICC arrest warrant and ICJ orders, now corroborated by OCHA’s famine monitoring charts. The ICJ called it out in provisional measures; the ICC wrote it into arrest warrants. Still, the world debates reconstruction blueprints while people starve.
Nor does the war economy stand idle. A series of investigations, including by The Economist, reveal how Israel has built resilience against sanctions by embedding itself as a global arms exporter. Its drones, surveillance technology, and missile systems are sold to dozens of countries, ensuring reciprocal political insulation. This “sanctions-proof” status means that even if governments wanted to pressure Israel economically, they would face blowback in their own defence sectors. The result is a grotesque inversion: the more the war in Gaza continues, the more Israel’s arms industry thrives, and the more governments have a vested interest in looking away. This feedback loop of profit and protection transforms humanitarian crisis into commercial opportunity, making the politics of impunity even more entrenched.
And yet, in diplomatic corridors, a parallel conversation unfolds— about reconstruction. US and UN officials, along with European donors, are drafting post-war blueprints envisioning technocratic governance, international stabilisation forces, and even disarmament mandates for Palestinian factions. These plans, however, are notable for what they lack: the agency of Palestinians themselves. Some leaked concepts even echo earlier “Gaza Riviera” fantasies, raising fears of demographic engineering under the guise of rebuilding. Reconstruction, without restitution and return, risks becoming another phase of dispossession. True rebuilding cannot be engineered in Geneva or New York; it must begin with the people whose homes have been pulverised and whose right to live in them must be restored. Otherwise, the entire project becomes a façade: concrete without justice.
Europe meanwhile performs its own dissonant dance. London welcomes Isaac Herzog— the very president named in ICJ findings for incendiary rhetoric fuelling the war— even as it contemplates symbolic recognition of a Palestinian state. Paris and Berlin speak of human rights in the abstract, yet renew arms and intelligence agreements with Tel Aviv. Brussels drafts human-rights resolutions that sit in drawers while EU trade ties flow uninterrupted. This hypocrisy is not lost on the Arab street, nor on global South states that see double standards as a defining feature of Western diplomacy. The disjunction between rhetoric and action is not just a credibility issue— it is an accelerant of radicalisation and global instability.
So what does an “immediate resolution” truly mean in practice? It begins with enforcement, not just exhortation: an internationally monitored ceasefire with teeth, capable of halting bombardment and ensuring compliance. It requires the reopening of crossings, the guaranteed flow of humanitarian aid at scale, and restoration of essential services— as ordered by the ICJ, monitored by OCHA, and demanded by countless NGOs.
It requires the ICC to be shielded from political sabotage and Palestinian NGOs to be restored to legitimacy, not punished for pursuing justice. It requires donor states to condition reconstruction on the recognition of rights, restitution, and safe return—not on the acceptance of externally imposed frameworks. These steps are not idealistic—they are pragmatic, and they are the minimum owed to a people who have endured decades of dispossession compounded by genocidal violence.
To delay these actions is to collude in atrocity. To obscure them under diplomatic platitudes is to invite history’s harshest judgment. Democracies that persist in double standards must recognise that the cost is not just Gaza’s destruction but their own moral disintegration. The radicalisation bred by impunity will haunt global security for decades. The erosion of legal norms today will be tomorrow’s permission slip for atrocities elsewhere. What Gaza demands of the world is not charity, not rhetoric, but law in action. Anything less is an abdication—and one that history will not forgive.
