Dr Philip Webber, SGR, updates earlier analysis of the considerable humanitarian impacts of the war in Gaza, including probable genocide. In particular, he summarises the role of the arms industries in the USA, UK, and elsewhere.
Responsible Science blog, 22 October 2024
In a previous article, we assessed the impacts of the early months of the Israeli military bombardment of Gaza, including the events that led up to it. With the war passing its first anniversary, we re-examine the situation, especially the role of weapons supplied to the Israeli military from Western nations and corporations, predominantly the USA. We also discuss some of the legal and political issues, as civilian casualties continue to mount, large numbers of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners remain captive, and the key political parties remain unable or unwilling to agree ceasefire terms, while an escalating conflict spreads across the Middle East.
Casualties and widespread destruction
The numbers of those killed or injured by the Israeli bombardment of Gaza – and associated attacks in the West Bank – has continued to grow. At the time of writing, the official death toll has passed 43,000, including some 16,500 children. Nearly 100,000 people have been injured, many severely with loss of limbs, and at least 10,000 people are missing – probably dead and buried under rubble. The official Israeli death toll is 1,139.
Nearly the whole population – some two million Gazans – are now refugees in their own territory, fleeing from multiple Israeli evacuation directives as many as 14 times, and each time facing new violence. Israel’s air force continues to target alleged Hamas operatives, whilst killing multiple civilians in tented refugee camps, hospitals and civilian shelters. The population is traumatised and malnourished, with more than one million people facing famine and acute food and water shortages, and with humanitarian aid often blocked. Satellite imagery shows widespread and systematic destruction of entire residential neighbourhoods, schools, hospitals, and universities.
An article in the Israeli +972 magazine cites interviews with the Israeli military and hundreds of videos posted by Israeli forces on social media, showing them proudly engaging in gratuitous destruction or committing war crimes – for example, blowing up a university, and destroying a water facility in Rafah.
A July article in the eminent medical journal The Lancet discusses the Gaza casualty data, highlighting that collecting reliable statistics has become increasingly difficult due to the widespread destruction. The authors cite evidence from previous violent conflicts that there are substantial indirect health implications beyond the direct harm from violence: “…in the coming months and years from causes such as reproductive, communicable, and non-communicable diseases. The total death toll [in Gaza] is expected to be large given the intensity of this conflict; destroyed health-care infrastructure; remaining healthcare staff unpaid since October 2023, severe shortages of food, water, and shelter; the population's inability to flee to safe places; and the loss of funding to UNRWA, one of the very few humanitarian organisations still active in the Gaza Strip.”
As a result, they estimate that at least 186,000 additional deaths would be caused by the conflict (without an epidemic or escalation) leading to the decimation of over 8% of the total original population.
Who supplies the weapons used in Gaza?
Before the bombardment of Gaza, Israeli military expenditure was the world’s third-largest per capita after Qatar and the USA, with an average total expenditure of $1.8bn per month. By December 2023, Israel’s monthly military spending increased to $4.7bn – an increase of 260 per cent – making it the world’s highest.
In monetary terms, the USA is by far the largest supplier of armaments for the war in Gaza. Other suppliers of arms to Israel only account for a few per cent of support in monetary terms, but include several key components vital for Israel’s military to function. Under a ten-year agreement with the USA, Israel receives annual military aid of $3.8bn ($3.3bn for weaponry and $0.5bn for the ‘Iron Dome’ missile defence system). Before October 2023, the second-largest arms supplier was Germany with a contract for the provision of submarines.
Whilst it is impossible to get comprehensive or reliable data on the volume of arms transfers to Israel specifically for the war in Gaza, because much information is not openly published, a whole series of US bills and agreements list a wide range of arms deals and shipments. By March 2024, at least 100 arms shipments had been delivered, 57,000 155mm artillery shells in December alone. In June 2024, a briefing given to Reuters journalists listed some quantities of the larger weapons delivered, manufactured by US companies General Dynamics and Boeing: 14,000 MK-84 2,000-pound bombs; 6,500 MK-81 500-pound bombs; 3,000 ‘Hellfire’ air-to-ground missiles; 1,000 ‘bunker-buster’ BLU-109 bombs; 2,600 GBU-39 air-dropped small-diameter bombs; and other munitions. The USA also moved forward the supply of additional ground attack aircraft to add to its existing F-15s, F-16s and F-35s, including 25 F-35s, 25 F-15s, and 12 Apache helicopters. The US has also permitted Israel to replenish its stocks of 155mm artillery shells from its enormous one-billion-dollar weapons reserve stockpile based in Israel. By October 2024, additional US arms funding for Israel amounted to approximately $14bn – with some of this funding awaiting transfer and other arms deliveries expedited under previously signed contracts.
All other arms suppliers provide less than one per cent of Israel’s arms by value. But some of these components are vital for Israeli weapons systems to function. For example, UK manufacturer BAE Systems, supply about 15% of vital components for the F-35s used to bomb Gaza, while the engine for the Elbit Systems Hermes 450 drone is manufactured in Bristol. The F-35 supplies evaded any restrictions as the contract was originally agreed in 2008 – which also highlights the long lead time for military components.
Before some nations suspended arms sales, Germany, Italy, Canada, The Netherlands, UK, and India also supplied high volumes of ammunition – literally millions of rounds – together with small arms, anti-tank missiles, military helicopters, armoured vehicles, artillery, and other key military components.
Indiscriminate impact
Sources such as Al-Jazeera and Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, both estimate total bomb tonnages of at least 75,000 dropped in the first year. In our previous article, we included some estimates of the tonnage of explosives used in the early months of the war, pointing out the significance of distinguishing between the total weight of munitions used and the weight of the explosives inside the munitions, especially when comparing figures with other conflicts. Nevertheless, even then, there was clear evidence that the scale of the destruction in Gaza was beyond the World War II bombings of Hamburg, Cologne, and Dresden. The huge bombardment is the reason for the high level of deaths, injuries, and destruction, particularly to civilian populations – who have also fallen victim to tank, machine gun, and small arms fire, as well as grenades.
Many of the munitions used on Gaza are particularly destructive when used in areas densely populated with civilians, including a high proportion of women and children. The enormous 2,000-pound MK-84 bomb was developed by the USA for use in the Vietnam War against large buildings or infrastructure. It has a huge lethal blast radius of about 180m, leading to very high casualties surrounding any target. In December 2023, a New York Times analysis using satellite data, tracked over 500 of the MK-84 craters – each about 12m in diameter – in heavily populated areas and previously Israeli designated evacuation areas where they were responsible for very high civilian casualty levels.
The use of artillery or mortar shelling is another deadly and indiscriminate weapon when used in densely populated and built-up areas such as Gaza, where the inhabitants have no practical means of evacuation to safer areas. The US-designed 155mm M107 high-explosive shell is manufactured by Israel’s state-owned company, Military Industries, as well as by US corporations. At least 50,000 of them have been fired into the heavily populated areas of Gaza. According to a 2007 Human Rights Watch report, the expected lethal blast radius for a 155mm high-explosive projectile is 50–150m and the expected casualty radius is 100–300m created by about 2,000 shrapnel fragments from each detonation. Thus, any shell fired into a typical Gaza neighbourhood will cause high civilian casualties, no matter the alleged military target.
The political and legal backdrop
Pressure on states to cease or curtail military exports to Israel has grown. A number of governments have faced a range of domestic and international political and civil society campaigns, investigations and legal challenges concerning their policies on the supply of arms to Israel.
In June 2024, a UN Commission of Inquiry, found that both Hamas and Israel had been responsible for multiple war crimes since 7 October.
By August, political and legal pressure on Israel had grown when South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), alleging genocide by Israel, was joined by several other countries including Ireland, Spain, Mexico and Norway. They also formally recognised the State of Palestine (Gaza, West Bank and East Jerusalem) making 146 nations out of the UN’s 193 to do so. Notably, the major supporters of Israel are a minority comprising certain European states and the USA.
Separately, the Court also heard contributions from 52 countries – the largest number in its history – concerning Israel’s decades long occupation of Palestinian land since the 1967 war. This led to a landmark ruling by the Court that Israel’s presence in these territories was unlawful, and it must cease the occupation as soon as possible, evacuate settlers, and make reparations. This ruling means that Israeli officials are committing crimes by continuing the occupation of Palestine, quite aside from any crimes they may be responsible for in Gaza or the West Bank.
On 18 September, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) confirmed this ICJ ruling demanding that Israel “brings to an end without delay its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.” The UNGA also called on nations to cease the “provision or transfer of arms, munitions and related equipment to Israel ... in all cases where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that they may be used in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”.
Also in September, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Kharim Khan, asked the Court to approve arrest warrants for five persons – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leaders Yahiya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh – for war crimes and crimes against humanity from 7 October 2023 onwards. Approval of the Court is awaited at the time of writing.
Khan said that Israel's Prime Minister and Defence Minister were suspected of crimes including starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, murder, intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population, and extermination. The Hamas leaders were accused of committing crimes including extermination, murder, hostage-taking, rape and sexual violence, and torture.
It would appear that the Israeli government agreed with the ICC prosecutor in respect of the Hamas leadership, but preferred summary justice rather than any protracted legal process. They assassinated two of the accused Hamas leaders during July in air-strikes and the third in October.
During September, Israel turned its main focus to the Hezbollah militia inside Lebanon and Syria, which had been firing munitions into northern Israel in support of the Palestinians. First, hundreds of sabotaged pagers and walkie-talkies were detonated, killing many of the militia’s leaders as well as numerous civilians. Then a series of massive air strikes were carried out, including the use of US-supplied bombs, together with a ground invasion. At the time of writing, over 2,000 people have been killed and 10,000 injured, mainly civilians, including over 100 children. Over one million people in Lebanon have fled their homes. Israeli forces have also attacked UN peacekeeping forces – who have been based in southern Lebanon since 2006.
Sir Geoffrey Nice, a senior human rights lawyer, who led the prosecution of Slobodan Milosevic in the 2002 ICC tribunal, considered that the sabotaged pagers and walkie-talkies “almost certainly” breached the laws of war in several ways, including disproportionality and the insufficient protection of civilians.
It is clear from these recent events and categorical statements from official Israeli spokespersons, that there is no prospect of international law or the international courts being respected nor their judgements enforced – for example, by a UN task force. However, the legal rulings have led to several countries suspending arms sales to Israel. At the time of writing, France, Canada, the Netherlands, Japan, Spain, and Belgium have suspended some arms sales. The UK has suspended 30 licences out of 354.
The US government is also increasingly using its pivotal position to force Israel to gradually change course by threatening to withhold arms or delaying some arms shipments. The Israeli government however, seems determined to complete as many of its military and regional objectives before the presidential election in November and before a new US administration is in place.
Prospects for a peaceful resolution?
Prospects look extremely poor in the near term. Officials from countries across the Middle East and experts from the USA and Europe highlight how all escalations of violence can only lead to even more violence and in due course the formation of even more extreme militant groups and more militaristic governments opposing them.
There is a long-standing Arab Peace Initiative, which offers recognition of Israel’s right to exist and secure borders as long as a two-state solution is agreed upon, based on the pre-1967 borders, along with Israel’s recognition of the State of Palestine. Clearly this could only be possible after a total and permanent ceasefire, massive humanitarian assistance, and the start of reconstruction in Gaza.
But Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu, and a majority of his cabinet, categorically reject recognition of the State of Palestine and see this latest conflict as a once in a lifetime opportunity to redraw the balance of power in the Middle East in Israel’s favour. As such, peace seems ever more distant.
Nevertheless, a new US administration in 2025 could alter this situation positively – although this prospect is highly uncertain.
Dr Philip Webber is Co-Chair of Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR), and has written on science, technology, and security issues for over 40 years.
Image by hosny salah from Pixabay
