[This interview was originally published by PBS News Hour on 27 May 2024. To view the original article click here.]
Israel's airstrike on a tent camp in Rafah killed scores of civilians and led to more global outcry. To discuss how it happened and its wider significance, Amna Nawaz spoke with Noura Erakat, an associate professor at Rutgers University and a human rights lawyer, and retired Israeli Col. Pnina Sharvit Baruch, a senior research fellow at the Israel Institute for National Security Studies.
Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.
Amna Nawaz:
We return now to the Israeli airstrike in Rafah yesterday which killed scores of civilians, what we know about how it happened and its wider significance.
We get two views.
First, Noura Erakat is associate professor at Rutgers University and a human rights lawyer.
Noura, welcome, and thanks for joining us.
As you heard, we have reported earlier, Prime Minister Netanyahu says this was a tragic mistake and Israeli officials will investigate. What questions do you want to see answered from that investigation and do you think you will get those answers?
Noura Erakat, Rutgers University:
What we saw yesterday was the asphyxiation and the burning to death of civilians by the plastic tents that are meant to shelter them. That means that they died in agony. Not only have they been put through a genocide, but, even in their death, they are put through indescribable pain and suffering.
At this point, we need to be asking questions about the systematic nature of Israel's campaign, which the ICJ has said is plausibly genocide. It is the duty to prevent genocide, not to punish it.
After the third ICJ decision now demanding an immediate cease-fire, why does this operation continue, knowing full well that Hamas cannot be defeated militarily and that, in the outcome, now some 40,000 civilians, 13,000 of them children, who have been killed, all the hospitals destroyed, all the universities destroyed, 80 percent of the population sheltering in the south with no safe zone?
Amna Nawaz:
Israel says that it's going after the last stronghold of Hamas there. And they also point out Hamas continues to launch missiles into Israel. They continue to hide behind civilians.
They also argue that a high death toll serves Hamas. Do you agree with that?
Noura Erakat:
Does anybody actually believe this? The only nuclear power in the Middle East, the 11th most significant military power in the world, 234 days, all the arsenal and impunity, and has not been able to diminish Hamas' military power?
Hamas was launching rockets from the very area that Israel said that it had cleared out. American intelligence officials have been telling us from the beginning that Israel cannot defeat Hamas militarily. We, as advocates and as scholars, have been insisting that you cannot defeat Hamas militarily, that it is part of the national and political fabric of Palestinians, and that they must be engaged with diplomatically.
And yet, even after 234 days, this staggering civilian death toll, Israel nowhere closer to defeating Hamas.
Amna Nawaz:
You're mentioning the Hamas, of course, the political wing, you say there is part of the political fabric of the Palestinian movement.
And I wonder how you think of it from the Jewish perspective, when they say this is a force that has called for the end of the Jewish state. How could you ask those seven million Jews in Israel to find a way to live alongside Hamas? What would you say to that?
Noura Erakat:
This is not an objection from Jewish people around the world. This is an objection from Zionists, be they Jewish Zionists, be they American Zionists, be they Christian Zionists, even if they are Muslim Zionists.
They believe in a state that it is exclusively a Jewish demographic majority, at the expense of an indigenous population whose land must be taken from them and who must be constantly dispossessed and forced into exile.
This equation, in and of itself, is unsustainable, has been determined as a form of apartheid by human rights legacy organizations like Human Rights Watch, as well as Israeli human rights organizations like B'Tselem.
Apartheid is a regime by which law and policy is used in order to maintain the racial superiority of one group over another. It is only through that thorough dehumanization of the racial other that this genocide is possible, that it has been accepted that babies be burnt alive in plastic tents for their displacement, who are suffering from a famine without access to hospitals and burn units, where we can still be asking the question about whose safety is now at risk and should be prioritized.
Amna Nawaz:
That is Noura Erakat, human rights lawyer, associate professor at Rutgers University.
Noura, thank you for your time.
Noura Erakat:
Thank you for having me.
Amna Nawaz:
We now turn to retired Israeli Colonel Pnina Sharvit Baruch. She was a legal adviser to the Israel Defense Forces and is now a senior research fellow at the Israel Institute for National Security Studies.
So, Pnina, as you heard, Prime Minister Netanyahu said the civilian deaths were a tragic mistake in this strike. It was also a mistake, you will remember, when an aid convoy from World Central Kitchen was hit, killing seven. And one of the biggest questions people have is why one of the best-funded and best trained militaries in the world keeps making these deadly mistakes.
What would you say to that?
Pnina Sharvit Baruch, Institute for National Security Studies:
This is a terrible situation.
We are — we are trapped in this war threatening us in Israel, and we are being attacked from all sides. It feels to us an existential threat. So we know we look strong. We are strong, but the threats are huge. The whole issue of Rafah, why is Rafah important, is because this is the land border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt.
And we know that they get from there their supply. There are tunnels going underneath, a lot of tunnels in Rafah.
Amna Nawaz:
But I should point out that it was the ICJ ruling just last week…
Pnina Sharvit Baruch:
Yes.
Amna Nawaz:
… that ordered Israel to halt its military offensive in Rafah, as you're pointing out, which is a critical point there.
So how was this military strike in Rafah not in violation of that order?
Pnina Sharvit Baruch:
Well, the order didn't say that Israel must halt its operations in Gaza.
What the order said — and I will quote it — is that Israel must halt its military offensive and any other action in Rafah which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about a physical destruction in whole or in part.
This is limited to what is covered by the Genocide Convention. Israel is not carrying out a genocide.
Amna Nawaz:
I'm reading the same text you are.
Pnina Sharvit Baruch:
Yes.
Amna Nawaz:
It says, "The state of Israel shall immediately halt its military offensive," as you just read there, "that could bring about physical destruction in whole or in part."
This — 45 civilians were killed. That is physical destruction in whole or in part, is it not?
Pnina Sharvit Baruch:
Yes, but genocide has the element of intent.
And the idea here was that Israel has to do what it can to avoid destruction. And, indeed, what happened here is a tragedy. But, again, what has to be checked is whether — how did it happen? Israel, at least according to what the initial explanation, is that it was using accurate ammunition, and perhaps there was something that — some fire that broke out.
Civilians get killed. It is terrible. It is tragic, but it doesn't necessarily mean that there is an intention. It definitely doesn't mean that there's a genocidal intention.
Amna Nawaz:
Pnina, as you have heard, some will argue that, look, Hamas is inseparable from the Palestinian national movement that sprang from oppression, from a lack of freedom, those are conditions that persist for Palestinians today, and that killing every last fighter of Hamas right now won't eliminate that.
What do you say to that?
Pnina Sharvit Baruch:
I think we have to beat the Hamas, at least the — again, the military structure of the Hamas.
If the Hamas continues to control the Gaza Strip, that means not only that Israel lost the war, and this is very dangerous, because Iran is looking, our other enemies. It is really dangerous for Israel. But it also means that there will be no prospects of peace. Hamas is opposed to peace.
As I hear also other speakers, when they are talking about no Zionist entity, that means no state of Israel. This is not about ending the occupation and finding a peaceful resolution for conflict. I have been a peace activist. I'm trying to reach a resolution. I meet Palestinians.
And I hope that the moderate Palestinians don't go after this notion that Israel has no right to exist. And that is what Hamas is promoting. So, if Hamas remains in power, there will be never a peaceful resolution of the conflict, and both Israelis and Palestinians will pay the price.
Amna Nawaz:
That is retired Israeli Colonel Pnina Sharvit Baruch now with the Israel Institute for National Security Studies.
Pnina, thank you for your time. We appreciate it.
Pnina Sharvit Baruch:
Thank you.
[It should be noted that PBS requested Noura Erakat to debate Pnina Sharvit Baruch. Noura declined, explaining that it is highly inappropriate to debate state propaganda rather than centering Palestinians at a time this dire and catastrophic. PBS obliged and put the segments of their commentary back to back as a result.]