Experts say Hamas and Israel are committing war crimes in their fight

The Hague, Netherlands, Oct. 15: he deadly attacks by Hamas on Israeli civilians and the devastating Israeli airstrikes and blockade of Gaza have raised accusations among international legal experts that both sides were violating international law.

A United Nations Commission of Inquiry said it has been "collecting and preserving evidence of war crimes committed by all sides" since the violence started last week. That evidence could be added to an investigation by the International Criminal Court into possible war crimes committed by Israel and Hamas in past conflicts.

"Intentional targeting of civilians and civilian objects without a military necessary reason to do so is a war crime, period," said David Crane, an American international law expert and the founding chief prosecutor of the United Nations' Special Court for Sierra Leone. "And that's a standard that both sides are held to under international law."

Even Israel's staunchest ally has sounded a note of caution.

U.S. President Joe Biden, at a meeting with Jewish leaders Wednesday, said he told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "that it is really important that Israel, with all the anger and frustration and just — I don't know how to explain it — that exists is that they operate by the rules of war — the rules of war. And there are rules of war."

After breaking through Israel's security barrier early Saturday morning, Hamas militants gunned down entire families, including women and young children, in border communities around the Gaza Strip. Israel's health service said it extricated the bodies of over a hundred community members from Kibbutz Be'eri. Militants attacked the Tribe of Nova music festival, gunning down people as they desperately sought refuge.

The attacks killed more than 1,300 people in Israel, including 247 soldiers — a toll unseen in Israel for decades.

Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine Director of Human Rights Watch, pointed to Hamas "shooting civilians en masse, taking hostages, including women and children — undeniably grave abuses of international law, for which there's no justification." In an analysis published on the international law website Opinio Juris, Cornell Law School professor Jens David Ohlin wrote that the Hamas attacks amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity under the International Criminal Court's founding Rome Statute.

Rights group Amnesty International called for accountability.

"Massacring civilians is a war crime and there can be no justification for these reprehensible attacks," said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International's secretary-general.

"These crimes must be investigated as part of the International Criminal Court's ongoing investigation into crimes committed by all parties in the current conflict," Callamard said.

The Israeli military has pulverized large parts of the Hamas -ruled Gaza Strip with airstrikes and blocked deliveries of food, water, fuel and electricity ahead of a possible ground invasion. The bombardment already has killed about 1,800 people in Gaza, including U.N. workers, paramedics and journalists. (AP)