'Will Shipping Companies be found Legally Complicit in the Conduct of the Gaza War and Emerging Genocide?', 5 August 2025

The 7 October 2023 surprise attack by Hamas in which 1,195 Israelis and foreign nationals, including 815 civilians, were killed, and 251 taken hostage with the stated goal of forcing Israel to release Palestinian prisoners was ill-conceived in what is a historically complex and highly sensitive region of the world.

Nonetheless, at the time of writing, there is little doubt that continuing military activities being pursued by the current Israeli Government in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are now viewed as variously involving war crimes, with an ongoing genocide of the Gazan population and generational damage to the standing and reputation of the state.

The recent ITV News exposé of airborne recorded devastation of civilian areas from onboard a humanitarian military flight is undeniable evidence of man-made civilan infrastructure devastation and resultant societal collapse.

…But, even wars have rules.

The wholesale destruction of civilian infrastructure by Israeli military planners and the use of associated internationally supplied hardware undeniably exceeds that, which under International Humanitarian Law is humane, proportionate, shows distinction between civilian and military targets, and follows the principle of military necessity which prohibits superfluous injury and unnecessary suffering.

It breaches the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocols, humanitarian principles, and it will be basis for extensive historic lessons to be forensically dissected by military commanders, planners, politicians and civil society for decades to come.

It may well include war crimes investigations and prosecutions of persons from all sides complicit in this tragedy.

…The Gaza war sharply brings into focus the necessity of extended mandatory and enhanced human rights due diligence by all sections of the maritime supply chain that must be consistently undertaken without excuse, exception, and without later corporate denial of being knowingly involved in a joint criminal enterprise.

International Humanitarian and Human Rights law and order has broken down in Gaza triggered by deliberate state actions and inherent human failings.

But, when the dust settles on this tragic conflict, and as highlighted in the report by Ms. Francesca Albanese, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967; the extent and arc of complicit actions and activities in the avoidable deaths and killing of so many civilians will more likely than not come back to haunt those same commercial shipping entities who chose to be on the wrong side of history, and put profit over people for the sake of market competition and shareholder return.