Violations of the laws of war by Israel are too numerous to be counted, the ongoing mass murder of Palestinians in Gaza being just a small part of that state’s catalogue of war crimes spread over more than six decades.

Yet there is little possibility that the Palestinian Authority will succeed in prevailing upon the International Criminal Court to act. On Tuesday, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki told the ICC’s prosecutor there was clear evidence of war crimes having been committed by Israel, and that it was time the court acted.

In one sense, Mr Malki was generous — he said the PA was prepared to give jurisdiction to the ICC to investigate crimes by both sides, because if the PA did not help the ICC, nobody could. The evidence Mr Malki spoke of must be sketchy, because it is difficult to get facts and gather evidence in the heat of war as bombs fall, fires rage, buildings crash and wounded babies cry.

The full extent of Israel’s war crimes will be known when guns fall silent. Will then the powers behind the ICC rise above geopolitical considerations and gather courage to do what some feel is an impossibility — putting Israel in the dock on charges of war crimes? So far, of the over 1,800 Palestinian civilians murdered by Israel, 408 are children. Not for nothing did the UNRWA official cry.

The use of artillery shells containing white phosphorus material has been just one of the Israeli armed forces’ many war crimes. It used them in Lebanon in 2006 and confessed to their use on a Gaza school in 2008-09 after initially denying it, since UN relief agencies and rights organisations had evidence to the contrary.

Richard Goldstone, who headed the investigation into the Gaza war, accused both Israel and Hamas of war crimes. Hamas initially rejected the report but later accepted it, while Tel Aviv boycotted the commission and accused it of prejudice.

This time, the UN, and more astonishingly even America, have condemned Israel’s attack on two Gaza schools, with the State Department denouncing it as a “disgraceful act” and calling for “a full and prompt investigation”. America’s denunciation of Israel is a rarity, but that doesn’t mean the Zionist lobby’s power to block a reference to the ICC has been impaired. The ICC must now assert itself and prove it can stand pressure and try this state for war crimes.

Published in Dawn, August 7th, 2014