Israel-Hamas War 2023-2024: Contending Legal Issues on Defences Open to Israel

To put the genocide tendencies of men under the guise of war in check, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide (the Convention) and the Rome Statute, among other humanitarian international legislations, were enacted. Israel experienced the massacre of its citizens in the hands of Hamas on 7/10/2023. About fourteen hundred people were killed and over a hundred persons abducted. Israel has launched war against Hamas and is pleading self-defence. This paper is motivated by the divisions in the United Nations (UN) and in other fora on whether Israel should stop its war against Hamas in Gaza unconditionally or not because of the Israelis held as hostages by Hamas. The paper found Hamas still holding hostages, seeking using them as a bargaining factor with Israel. It is the view and the recommendation that one in violation of international law should be precluded from the assistance of international law. Consulting web resource materials, textbooks, case and statutory laws, this work found self-defence possibly available to Israel and a doubtful presence of ‘intent’ required by Article II of the Conventions for the crime of genocide. The work seeks to achieve a united UN by recommending that a state that is in violation of a rule of international law should not be indulged by the UN until it purges itself of that violation. Deterrence to members of the UN who provoke fights and run to the UN pleading sentiments and their sponsors is one of the objectives of the work.