Legal Ramifications of the War in Gaza

The purpose of this Article is to highlight the major rules of international (humanitarian) law that have been implicated by the war in Gaza. Needless to say, when applying those rules of law to the empirical facts, and indeed in attempting to evaluate the claims and disclaimers on both sides of the offensive, the issues at stake are extremely complicated. Nor perhaps is the one-sided and almost exclusive condemnation of the Israeli offensive entirely warranted; that is, if the militant actions of Hamas is measured, objectively, against the applicable rules of international humanitarian law.