High Court says petitioners ‘not even close’ to showing Israel starving Gazan civilians
In ruling written before latest halt on aid, court says Israel has not violated legal prohibitions on collective punishment; human rights group slams ‘green light to continue war crimes’
Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter
The High Court of Justice ruled unanimously on Thursday that Israel has taken a variety of steps to provide for the humanitarian needs of Gaza’s civilian population during the current war with Hamas, and that there was no cause for the court to order the government and the army to take any additional action.
Critically, the court stated that the human rights groups which petitioned the court over the humanitarian situation in Gaza had “not even come close” to showing that Israel had violated legal prohibitions on starving a civilian population as a tool of war or as a form of collective punishment.
The court also ruled against the petitioners’ claim that Gaza is now under what is known as a “belligerent occupation” by Israel, which would apply heightened responsibilities for Israel to Gazan civilians.
The court found that at least two out of the three conditions for establishing a belligerent occupation have not been met by Israel, in particular that the IDF still does not have effective control of the territory and is unable to exercise governing authority.
Additionally, the court asserted that Hamas and other terror groups have deliberately hidden among the civilian population during the war; carried out terror activity from the Israel-designated humanitarian zone including from inside civilian facilities such as hospitals and schools; and seized humanitarian aid destined for civilians for its own use, to the detriment of the civilian population.
It also stated that the Palestinian terror groups in Gaza were responsible for civilian suffering in the war-torn territory, although the court added that Israel was not permitted to ignore that suffering.
Supreme Court President Isaac Amit, a liberal, wrote the primary opinion for the court, while conservatives Noam Sohlberg and David Mintz backed his decision.
Amit noted that the ruling was written before the government’s decision on March 2, 2025, to halt the transfer of all aid to Gaza, and said that the ruling could not address the new circumstances. It relates only to the petitions filed back in 2024 and the hearings that had been held for them.
The ruling is significant coming against the background of the arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant on charges of crimes against humanity for using starvation as a means of warfare against the Gazan civilian population.
The International Court of Justice is also considering a suit filed by South Africa against Israel on charges of genocide, relating in large part to accusations that Israel’s policies regarding the entry of humanitarian aid to Gaza have been deliberately designed to create conditions to bring about civilian deaths in the territory.
The Gisha human rights group, the primary petitioner in the case, denounced the decision, saying it gave Israel “a green light to continue committing war crimes” in Gaza.
In March 2024, Gisha, together with HaMoked: Center for the Defense of the Individual, Physicians for Human Rights Israel, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and Adalah, petitioned the court to order the government to allow unimpeded access of all necessary humanitarian aid to Gaza and to “significantly increase the volume of aid to Gaza,” including by opening land crossings and to provide for all the needs of the civilian population.
The court held five hearings on the petitions, the last of which was in November last year, requesting several updates and additional information from the state and its relevant agencies.
In his written opinion, Amit asserted that the IDF had taken steps during the war to reduce the harm done to Gaza’s civilian population, but acknowledged that the “fierce and protracted fighting” had exacted a heavy price from the civilian population in the strip.
“There is no dispute, and there can be no dispute, that the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is not easy, to put it mildly,” wrote Amit.
He added, however, that “the suffering of the civilian population does not in itself indicate a breach of [its] obligation by the State of Israel.”
Amit said that the transfer of humanitarian aid in all its forms had been allowed into Gaza for the majority of the war, and that Israel and the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), a unit of the Defense Ministry, had conducted numerous activities to facilitate the entry of aid into Gaza and to help coordinate its distribution.
This included opening new goods crossings into Gaza, upgrading the roads leading to the crossings and inside Gaza itself, as well as coordinating collection and distribution operations of the aid inside Gaza by humanitarian organizations operating in the territory to the civilian population.
Amit wrote that during the course of the war and the court’s hearings on the petitions, COGAT was in constant contact with the humanitarian organizations on the ground to understand the needs of the population and to improve its response to those needs.
“Throughout the hearing of the petition, we were presented with a variety of steps that the respondents were taking to help humanitarian aid reach the uninvolved civilian population in the Gaza Strip,” wrote Amit.
These steps were taken “while balancing the State of Israel’s humanitarian obligations with operational, [and] security considerations,” including the fear that aid would be diverted by terror groups.
“In doing so, the respondents showed attentiveness to the changing reality and the needs anticipated by the aid organizations, and a willingness to become more efficient in the manner of their activities,” he added.
As a result, Amit wrote, he did not see a need for court intervention.
“Taking into account the totality of the actions taken by the respondents with the aim of improving the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip throughout the period of time examined in the petition, as detailed above, I do not believe that the petitioners were able to establish – not even close – a violation of the prohibitions on starvation of a population as a method of warfare and on collective punishment,” he added.
“It is the terrorist organizations that bear responsibility for the suffering of the uninvolved population,” concluded Amit, adding, however, that “this human suffering is not something that the State of Israel is entitled to ignore.”
Regarding the claims of Gisha and the other petitioners that Gaza is under belligerent occupation, Amit wrote that three conditions must be fulfilled for such a finding, including a physical presence of the foreign force in the territory in question; the ability of that force to function as a governing authority there; and the loss of the previous rulers of their ability to exercise government authority.
Amit ruled that neither the second nor the third conditions have been met, and that therefore Israel cannot be said to be in a belligerent occupation of Gaza, with the accompanying legal obligations to its civilian population.
Gisha and the other human rights organizations which petitioned the court said the ruling “reads like a hymn of praise to the State of Israel and its army during the darkest period in their history,” and “conveniently” determined the time period for the petition to stop at the beginning of this March when Israel halted the transfer of aid to Gaza.
“The ruling thus gives the State of Israel a green light to continue committing war crimes and harming civilians in Gaza,” Gisha stated.
The Times of Israel Community.