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Here Is Exactly Why Israel’s War Against Hamas Is Legal — and Required — By International Law
An Israeli military vehicle patrols on the Israeli side of the Gaza border, May 7, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Israel has always had to navigate “new waves.” Today, however, separate but force-multiplying “seas” of jihadi terrorism and Iranian nuclearization define an existential threat. To confront this, Jerusalem’s strategic decision-makers will need to offer assessments in legal and strategic terms.
On these matters, geography remains specific. Gaza is often center stage, and Gazan Palestinians are portrayed as victims of incessant harms. Though the death and victimization of so many Gaza noncombatants seems difficult to reconcile with humanitarian international law, there exists a clarifying distinction between jihadist-inflicted terror violence and Israeli-inflicted defensive measures — measures needed by Israel to survive as a state.
This distinction centers on “criminal intent” or mens rea. For Hamas, Hezbollah, Fatah, the Houthis and assorted other Islamist foes, mens rea is conspicuous and indisputable. These groups aim to kill civilians.
For Israel, on the other hand, it is absent prima facie. Though Gaza civilians do not deserve to suffer the harms of any military attacks, legal responsibility for these attacks does not lie with Israel. It lies with those Palestinian leadership cadres that insidiously place military assets within normally-protected civilian structures — and that launched this war with its massacre against Israel on Oct. 7, which it has threatened to repeat “over and over” if it stays in power.
Critics of Israel’s Gaza policies should consider an elucidating analogy from domestic law. In national or “municipal” legal settings, no reasonable comparisons can be made between the crime of murder and police action to stop murder. In the first case, the grievously inflicted harms are intentional. In the second case, they are unavoidable.
International law is not a suicide pact. As is the case for every state in world politics, Israel has an immutable right to “stay alive.”
To protect itself against the sorts of lascivious harms perpetrated on October 7, 2023, Jerusalem has not only the right — but the obligation to prevent Israel’s planned “elimination.” This primary obligation extends beyond Israel to the entire community of nations.
In its current law-enforcing war against jihadist terror — in Gaza, but also in Yemen, Lebanon, Judea/Samaria (West Bank), and various other places — Israel is acting on behalf of all imperiled or “at risk” states.
While this assessment has been difficult to acknowledge by those who see only the tangible effects of Israeli counter-terrorism efforts, it is still supported by applicable legal standards, especially the long-established principle of “mutual aid.” By this immutable principle, each state is obligated to assist other states threatened by terror-violence.
The Nuremberg Principles (especially Principle 1) stipulate “No crime without a punishment” (Nullum crimen sine poena). There would have been no Gaza war and no Palestinian casualties if Hamas had not launched its October 7, 2023, criminal assault against noncombatant Israelis, some under five years old, with civilians repeatedly raped (male and female) and ceremoniously burned alive.
Among the jurisprudentially-vacant charges leveled against Israel in its necessary Gaza War operations is “disproportionality.” But what exactly does this charge mean under humanitarian international law?
Though counter-intuitive, proportionality has nothing to do with any obligation to inflict symmetrical or equivalent harms.
The law-based obligations of “proportional combat” are contained in rules governing resort to armed conflict (“justice of war”) and the operational conduct of hostilities (“justice in war”). In the former, proportionality concerns existential rights of national self-defense. In the latter, it references the manner in which a particular belligerency is being conducted.
Proportionality derives from a more basic legal principle, namely that belligerent rights of insurgent groups and nation-states always have specific limitations. To wit, the ubiquitous Hamas declaration that the organization is entitled to fight “by any means necessary” contravenes Hague Convention No. IV (1907), Annex to the Convention, Section II (Hostilities), Art. 22: “The right of belligerents to adopt means of injuring the enemy is not unlimited.”
Unlike Israel, which plainly regrets the collateral damage of its mandatory self-defense war in Gaza, Hamas rocket fire and variegated terror attacks are the express product of openly “criminal intent.”
There is more. Unlike Israel, Hamas actively seeks to target, maim and kill noncombatants. Under humanitarian international law, a belligerent’s resort to armed force always remains limited to what is “necessary” to meet allowable military objectives. The related notion of “military necessity” is defined as follows: “Only that degree and kind of force, not otherwise prohibited by the law of armed conflict, required for the partial or complete submission of the enemy with a minimum expenditure of time, life, and physical resources may be applied.”
We generally speak of “international” law, but belligerents include not only nation-states, but also insurgent and terrorist armed forces. This means that even where an insurgency is presumptively lawful — that is, where it seemingly meets the settled criteria of “just cause” — it must still satisfy all corollary expectations of “just means.” It follows that even if Hamas and its sister terror groups could have a presumptive right to fight against an alleged Israeli “occupation,” that fight would need to respect the established limitations of “distinction,” “proportionality” and “military necessity.”
Deliberately firing rockets into Israeli civilian areas and intentionally placing military assets amid civilian populations represents a “perfidious” crime of war. And any taking of civilian hostages, whatever the alleged cause, represents an unpardonable criminality.
If a “common-sense” definition of proportionality was ever deemed appropriate, there could be no legitimate defense for America’s “disproportionate” attacks on European and Japanese cities during World War II. By that standard, Dresden, Cologne, Hiroshima and Nagasaki would represent the incontestable nadir of inhumane and lawless belligerency. Expressed differently, these US attack histories would represent the modern world’s very worst violations of humanitarian international law.
Hamas’ perfidy represents a much greater wrongdoing than simple immorality or visceral cowardice. It expresses a starkly delineated and punishable crime. It is identified as a “grave breach” at Article 147 of Geneva Convention IV.
Deception can be lawful in armed conflict, but The Hague Regulations disallow any placement of military assets or personnel in populated civilian areas. Related prohibitions of perfidy can be found at Protocol I of 1977, additional to the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949. These rules are also binding on the basis of customary international law, a principal jurisprudential source identified at Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice.
All combatants, including Palestinian insurgents allegedly fighting for “self-determination,” are bound by the law of war. This rudimentary requirement is found at Article 3, common to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949. It cannot be suspended or abrogated.
On its face, the expressed Hamas goal of Palestinian “self-determination” is founded on an intended crime — that is, the total “removal” of the Jewish State by attrition and annihilation.
This literally genocidal orientation has its origins in the PLO’s “Phased Plan” of June 9, 1974. In its 12th Session, the PLO’s highest deliberative body, the Palestinian National Council, reiterated the terror-organization’s aim “to achieve their rights to return, and to self-determination on the whole of their homeland.”
For Israel, the core existential threat is no longer “Pan-Arab War.” At some still-ambiguous point, Hamas and other jihadi forces (plausibly, with Iranian support) could prepare to launch mega-terror attacks on Israel. Such potentially perfidious aggressions, unprecedented and in cooperation with allied non-Palestinian Jihadists (e.g., Shiite Hezbollah) could include chemical, biological, or radiological (radiation-dispersal) weapons.
Foreseeable perils could also include a non-nuclear terrorist attack on the Israeli reactor at Dimona. There is a documented history of enemy assaults against this Israeli plutonium-production facility, both by a state (Iraq in 1991) and by a Palestinian terror group (Hamas in 2014). Neither attack was successful, but variously fearful precedents were established.
Under international law, terrorists are considered hostes humani generis or “common enemies of humankind.” This category of criminals invites punishment wherever the wrongdoers can be found. Concerning their required arrest and prosecution, jurisdiction is now unambiguously “universal.” Correspondingly relevant is that the universality-declaring Nuremberg Principles reaffirm the ancient legal principle of “No crime without a punishment.”
In the end, Hamas and its kindred jihadi forces argue they are fighting a “just war” and are therefore entitled to employ “any means necessary.” Under determinative international law, however, even a just war must be fought with “just means.” Ends can never justify means.
A corollary clarification is warranted: Rights can never stem from wrongs (ex iniuria ius non oritur). Under no circumstances can there be law-based justifications for inherently-criminal terror-violence. To suggest otherwise would be an oxymoron.
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the forerunner of both Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) and the Palestinian Authority was formed in 1964. This formation was three years before there were any “Israeli Occupied Territories.” So what exactly were the Palestinians trying to “liberate”?
It’s not a hard question. The answer remains incontestable. “Palestine” is everything “From the River to the Sea.” By unwavering design, it includes the entire State of Israel.
Prof. Louis René Beres was educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971) and is the author of many books and scholarly articles dealing with international law, nuclear strategy, nuclear war, and terrorism. In Israel, Prof. Beres was Chair of Project Daniel (PM Sharon). His 12th and latest book is Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016; 2nd ed., 2018).
The post Here Is Exactly Why Israel’s War Against Hamas Is Legal — and Required — By International Law first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Anti-Zionists Are Excluding LGBTQ+ Jews From Pride Spaces, New Report Says
Jews of Pride members are seen marching in the Pride parade 2025, part of LGBTQ+ community’s Midsumma Festival. Photo: Alexander Bogatyrev / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect.
Anti-Israel activists in the LGBTQ+ community are subjecting Zionist Jews to extreme levels of discrimination, including expulsions from major progressive groups and even physical assault, according to a new report by the nonprofit A Wider Bridge.
The release of the report — titled “Unsafe Spaces: Addressing Antisemitism Against LGBTQ+ Jews and Ensuring Pride Safety” — comes as LGBTQ community members across the Western world observe Pride Month, a period of festivities which celebrate the expansion of social and legal rights that have allowed gays to live more freely and authentically than ever in human history. For pro-Israel Jews, however, Pride Month 2025 is a challenging moment, as anti-Zionism has creeped into and crowded out many queer spaces which once welcomed them with open arms.
From online forums to the streets, the maltreatment and “erasure” of Jewish queer identity is severe, the report explains. Eighty-two percent of LGBTQ Jews have reported being expelled from social media channels or harassed on them, A Wider Bridge noted.
Earlier this year, NYC Dyke March, a public demonstration held by members of the lesbian community in New York City, banned self-proclaimed “Zionists” from its annual event, citing a desire to stand against the so-called “genocide” occurring in Gaza. Last year, the NYC Dyke March came under scrutiny after organizers settled on “genocide” as the theme of its 2024 event. In a statement, decrying “ethnic cleansing, violence, and dehumanization,” the organization compared the ongoing war in Gaza, to mass killings occurring in Ethiopia, Myanmar, and Sudan.
Also in 2024, the Dyke March Committee formally barred “Zionists” from participating in the Pride March, and during the event Jews were attacked and heckled after being seen wearing the Star of David on their clothing. That same year, an LGBTQ-friendly bar in the Brooklyn borough of New York City refused to hold a screening party for the Eurovision talent competition due to the participation of an Israeli contestant.
Forced, mass exiles are taking place in response to this new reality, the report added. Forty-three percent of queer Jews say they are leaving online forums; 40 percent abstain from participating in LGBTQ social events; and 30 percent said their decision was driven by precipitous deterioration of the manner in which they are treated. The only conclusion to draw, the report said, is that the Pride movement is “no longer universally safe or inclusive.”
“What we have found since Oct. 7 and what the report points to is that the explosion of antisemitism that the whole Jewish community has experienced has in some ways grown even more exponentially in the LGBTQ community,” Rabbi Denise Eger, interim executive director of A Wider Bridge and former president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, told The Algemeiner during an interview on Friday. “What we’re seeing around now as Pride marches and organizations put on their celebration s is institutional discrimination and outright boycotts.”
Eger went on to note that antisemitism in LGBTQ communities is all the more distressing due to the outsized contributions, legal and political, which Jewish gays and lesbians have made towards fostering a society that is more inclusive of non-heteronormative identities and relationships.
“Look at who were the early leaders of the LGBTQ civil rights movement — Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay elected officials in the US, was a Jewish man. Edith Windsor, who brought one of the first marriage equality cases that we won at the Supreme Court, and her attorney, Roberta Kaplan, who won it — these are LGBTQ heroes, not just LGBTQ ‘Jewish’ heroes and heroines,” Eger continued. “So, for LGBTQ Jews to be continually shut out of these spaces is paralyzing, shocking, and horrifying, and LGBTQ Jews are asking where is their home.”
She added, “These are difficult times, but together, the whole Jewish community, including the LGBTQ part of the Jewish community, can stand strong and be resilient in the face of all this, just as the Jewish people have done throughout our history. We have the tools within our tradition to keep us strong and to help us educate. And yes, I believe so much, as a rabbi, that we can and must help change the world for the better. That’s what we are called to do as the Jewish people.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, recorded incidents of antisemitism in the US continue to increase year over year, breaking all previous annual records.
In 2024, as reported by the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) annual audit, there were 9,354 antisemitic incidents — an average of 25.6 a day — across the US, creating an atmosphere of hate not experienced in the nearly thirty years since the ADL began tracking such data in 1979. Incidents of harassment, vandalism, and assault all increased by double digits, and for the first time ever a majority of outrages — 58 percent — were related to the existence of Israel as the world’s only Jewish state.
The Algemeiner parsed the ADL’s data, finding dramatic rises in incidents on college campuses, which saw the largest growth in 2024. The 1,694 incidents tallied by the ADL amounted to an 84 percent increase over the previous year. Additionally, antisemites were emboldened to commit more offenses in public in 2024 than they did in 2023, perpetrating 19 percent more attacks on Jewish people, pro-Israel demonstrators, and businesses perceived as being Jewish-owned or affiliated with Jews.
“Hatred toward Israel was a driving force behind antisemitism across the US, with more than half of all antisemitic incidents referencing Israel or Zionism,” said Oren Segal, ADL senior vice president for counter-extremism and intelligence. “These incidents, along with all those documented in the audit, serve as a clear reminder that silence is not an option. Good people must stand up, push back, and confront antisemitism wherever it appears. And that starts with understanding what fuels it and learning to recognize it in all its forms.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Two UK Men Convicted, Jailed Following November Antisemitic Harassment
Illustrative: A pro-Hamas march in London, United Kingdom, Feb. 17, 2024. Photo: Chrissa Giannakoudi via Reuters Connect
A court in the United Kingdom on Thursday sentenced Hussein Altamimi, 22, and Ali Alanzi, 30, to prison sentences of eight months and seven months respectively, for charges stemming from an incident at London’s Western Marble Arch Synagogue in November 2024, according to British media.
The two men received convictions for yelling at four Jewish worshipers such phrases as “Jews aren’t welcome here,” “you don’t belong here,” and “f—king Jew.” They also repeatedly screamed “free Palestine.”
The incident grew violent when Altamimi hit one victim’s arm to try and prevent her from filming the abuse. Alanzi also hurled liquid from an alcoholic drink toward one person. When police arrived to arrest the pair, he assaulted one of the officers.
The court convicted both men of four counts of religiously aggravated public order offenses and religiously aggravated assault. Alanzi also received a conviction for attacking the officer and will endure an additional 12 weeks’ incarceration due to a previous suspended sentence.
On Friday, the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) described its reaction to the hate crime prosecutions on X in one word: “Vindicated.”
Altamimi also faced additional charges and guilty verdicts related to a July 2023 incident which included racial abuse and striking a police officer.
“The CPS is working closely with the police to tackle hate crime, making sure that perpetrators who target victims because of their religion, race, sexuality, gender identity, or disability are brought to justice,” Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) lawyer Anna Hindmarsh said following the trial. “We know that hate crimes have a significant impact on victims and the wider community, and we will continue to support victims and witnesses who come forward to report any examples of hate crime they have experienced.”
The convictions against Altamimi and Alanzi are part of a historic surge in antisemitic acts in the United Kingdom.
The UK experienced its second-worst year for antisemitism in 2024, despite recording an 18 percent drop in antisemitic incidents from the previous year’s all-time high, according to a report released in February.
The Community Security Trust (CST), a nonprofit charity that advises Britain’s Jewish community on security matters, released data showing it recorded 3,528 antisemitic incidents for 2024, a drop of 18 percent from the 4,296 in 2023. These numbers compare to 1,662 antisemitic incidents in 2022, 2,261 in 2021, and 1,684 in 2020.
In the 12 months following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, CST counted 5,583 antisemitic incidents in the UK, an increase from 204 percent from the same period the previous year.
Many of the incidents involved violence targeting the Jewish community.
Last month, On May 26, a group of six or seven men attacked three Jewish boys at the Hampstead Underground Station in North London, requiring hospitalization for one. CAA said that “this report is yet another stark reminder of the growing threat facing Jewish communities, including children.”
Another antisemitic assault occurred in Manchester in February, when an unidentified individual hit a Jewish man with what was believed to be a bottle, shattering the victim’s glasses.
The heavily Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Stamford Hill in Hackney saw an antisemitic act last week when vandals targeted a Jewish-owned investment firm, smashing its windows and splashing red paint. The group Palestine Action claimed responsibility for the crime, as it had done previously for similar acts at the University of Cambridge’s endowment fund headquarters and the BBC’s New Broadcasting House.
“This should be treated as [an] antisemitic incident without any doubt. [The owners] are visibly Jewish people; the people who run the business and this business itself have nothing to do with Israel,” said Rabbi Herschel Gluck, president of Jewish security service Shomrim’s branch in Stamford Hill.
Days earlier, residents of Brighton in southeastern England discovered antisemitic vandalism at a memorial created to honor the victims of the Hamas-led Oct. 7 terror attacks.
“There have been over 40 attacks on the site including vandalism, theft, and graffiti. The abuse has been relentless,” Heidi Bachram, who volunteers to maintain the memorial, told The Jewish Chronicle at the time. “It’s shocking that grief for innocents is met with such violence. The hate won’t stop us, and every night, a different victim’s story will be told [at the memorial]. We will never let them be forgotten.”
In April, according to prosecutors, Abdullah Sabah Albadri, 33, attempted to climb a wall outside of the Israeli embassy in London while carrying a “martyrdom note.”
Prosecutor Kristel Pous said that Albadri told police that he wanted to “do something to send a message to the Israeli government to stop the war.”
The Israeli embassy stated in response to the foiled attack that “we thank the British security forces for their immediate response and ongoing efforts to secure the embassy.” It vowed that “the embassy of Israel will not be deterred by any terror threat and will continue to represent Israel with pride in the UK.”
The post Two UK Men Convicted, Jailed Following November Antisemitic Harassment first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Large Pro-Israel Event in Texas ‘Indefinitely Postponed’ Due to Threats of Terrorism
A protester holds a sign that reads, ”From the river to the sea Palestine will be free” during a pro-Palestinian emergency demonstration outside the Consulate General of Israel in Houston, Texas, on March 19, 2025. Photo: Reginald Mathalone via Reuters Connect
The 2025 Israel Summit in Dallas, Texas has been indefinitely postponed in response to what organizers described as intensifying threats of terrorism.
Prior to the cancellation, the event was expecting over 1,000 attendees. The Israel Summit had already undergone a last-minute venue change due to mounting safety concerns. The gathering, scheduled for June 9–11, was set to feature prominent voices from both the Jewish and Christian pro-Israel communities.
Former US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, who had been scheduled to speak at the event, commented on the cancellation on social media: “This is what America looks like in 2025. A peaceful pro-Israel gathering with more than a thousand participants had to be scrapped because of threats from violent extremists.”
Ten days prior to this year’s event, local police and intelligence officials in Dallas alerted organizers that the gathering had been upgraded to a “high-threat event.”
According to Josiah Hilton, host of the Israel Guys show, which was scheduled to co-host the event with HaYovel, the organizers had to produce “a mandatory security plan with a substantial budget estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
The organizers then moved the Israel Summit to a facility in an isolated area of Kenneth, Texas. However, the event was forced to cancel after the Palestinian Youth Movement Dallas and Jewish Voice for Peace, a pair of anti-Israel, pro-Hamas organizations, revealed its location to their followers.
“[T]he Genocide Summit had to change plans last minute in desperation due to them claiming to be ‘under attack.’ The reality is they understand DFW’s commitment to confronting the extremist ideology that is Zionism,” Palestinian Youth Movement Dallas wrote on Instagram.
However, the organizers stated that they are going to hold the pro-Israel event “in the near future,” and vowed to “come back bigger and stronger, with more people.”
Hilton said that the cancellation reflects “the growing normalization of antisemitic threats and anti-Israel extremists, which are fueling intimidation and silencing voices of support for Israel across the United States.”
The cancellation of the Israel Summit also reflects growing concern regarding potential violence against supporters of the Jewish state. Last month, two Israeli embassy staffers, Yaron Lipschinsky and Sarah Milgrim, were murdered while exiting an event hosted by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC. Then this past Sunday, an assailant firebombed a pro-Israel rally in Boulder, Colorado, injuring 15 people and a dog.
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