It seemed like all of Israel stood still on February 26 as the motorcade carrying the three Bibas family members made its way for a final time, from Rishon Lezion to a Gaza-border cemetery. Shiri Bibas, alongside her two sons, Ariel (4) and Kfir (nine months), were taken hostage on October 7, 2023, by Hamas in violation of the laws of war. They were killed in captivity. When their corpses were finally about to be returned to Israel, Hamas paraded their coffins on stage beneath a banner which depicted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a vampire, in a landscape scarred with destroyed buildings.
These series of events showcase numerous violations of international humanitarian law (IHL), which are enshrined in treaties, with perhaps the most substantial being the Geneva Conventions, created after World War II to protect civilians in war.
However, despite alleged neutrality, a March 7, 2025, conference in Geneva was due to discuss Israeli violations of the Geneva Conventions for the fourth time in 75 years. In a rare win described by Israel’s Foreign Ministry as being due to Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar working “under the radar,” the conference was canceled a day before its commencement due to an “absence of a consensus between the High Contracting Parties,” according to Swiss foreign ministry spokesperson Nicolas Bideau on X.
The hosting of the conference was viewed by the Foreign Ministry as “another platform to attack Israel...and embolden terrorist organizations that have shown utter disregard for humanity and the law.”
“Palestine,” which the United Nations recognizes as including the Gaza Strip, acceded to the Geneva Conventions in April 2014. Regardless of views on Gaza, especially after Hamas’s takeover in 2007, Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions sets a basic standard for civilian treatment, requiring humane treatment of civilians and prohibiting murder, hostage-taking, and torture.
The changing face of warfare and international humanitarian law
Since 1949, warfare has changed. Once largely the domain of state actors, increasing “gray areas” exist, threatening the established world order. In a report titled “International Humanitarian Law and the Challenges of Contemporary Armed Conflict” by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in 2024, they said fighting in cities raises questions about how conflicting parties interpret IHL rules.
The report, which names Gaza as one of the urban battlefields, discusses IHL applications but overlooks key violations by groups like Hamas.
The enforcement of the Geneva Conventions lies in states themselves, and therein lies the weak spot in IHL: The laws seem to protect on paper but are difficult to enforce in practice. Even more problematic is their ability to tackle conflicts in failed states or in gray zones in international conflict. Elements of enforcement, such as state sanctions, public relations campaigns, and international treaties, have limited effect in places that are more blurred. As such, a bizarre situation exists that state parties hostile to Israel use the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to twist IHL to frame Israel as the perpetrator of the worst crimes, largely ignoring Hamas, sufficing at best with an unenforceable call to release the hostages.
It is important to realize that a base international standard exists even in the case of Hamas, and violations should be more actively persecuted. NGOs and the IDF should actively document Hamas’s IHL violations and utilize lawfare to enforce the current standard.
In fact, these evolutions were recognized by Peter Maurer, president of the ICRC, in a speech delivered at the Peace Palace in The Hague in 2019 titled “Changing World, Unchanged Protection? 70 Years of the Geneva Conventions,” where he highlighted several trends which characterize the Gaza war. He said the ICRC has acknowledged the evolving nature of warfare, where civilian-combatant lines blur and asymmetric conflicts dominate.
The ICRC was founded to address battlefield atrocities, but modern conflicts like Hamas’s attacks challenge its effectiveness. Since October 7, 2023, Hamas has become a case study in the antithesis of IHL: a statelet terrorist organization that feels it is not bound to the rules of the international order, taking hostages and brutalizing civilians.
If its violations are not addressed, a precedent will be created, one that no state would be able to ignore.■
The writer has a master of laws from Lancaster University in the UK and a master of global affairs from the University of Toronto in Canada. His master’s thesis, later turned into a book, was ‘The Status of the Gaza Strip in International Law Following the Hamas Takeover in 2007.’ He currently works as a writer and teacher in Israel.