0:06

Fear of darkness, general tension,

0:09

a flashback, nightmares,

0:12

avoidance, difficulty sleeping,

0:15

and a recollection of their trauma.

0:17

These are just some of the debilitating

0:19

mental health symptoms of the children in Gaza.

0:22

Iman Farjala is a psychologist who lives

0:24

in the U.S., but she grew up

0:26

in Gaza.

0:27

Most of her family is still there. She

0:30

knows firsthand what it's like to live in the center

0:32

of a deadly conflict. The experience

0:34

was so vicious,

0:38

so scary, so

0:41

harmful that there's no words that

0:43

you can actually describe it. How

0:46

can you describe when the Israeli

0:48

soldiers, they come and jump from

0:50

the walls to our home, beating

0:53

up my brothers, beating up my mother?

0:55

Farjala works with refugee kids at a community

0:58

clinic in San Francisco, but she

1:00

also goes back to Gaza from time to time

1:02

to talk to kids there and document how

1:04

the violence is affecting them. It's

1:07

completely debilitating, and their sense of the world

1:09

is shattered. Eric Dubow is a professor

1:11

of psychology at Bowling Green State University.

1:14

They don't feel secure in their families.

1:16

They don't feel secure in their relationships with

1:18

others, constantly on guard. Israel

1:20

has continued to pound Gaza with airstrikes

1:23

since last month. That's when Hamas

1:25

militants crossed into southern Israel, killed 1,400

1:27

people, and took more than 200 hostage.

1:29

The Israeli army

1:32

now says its troops have surrounded Gaza

1:34

City, where they say Hamas is headquartered.

1:37

According to Palestinian health officials, of the 9,000

1:40

Palestinians killed so far, nearly half

1:42

were children.

1:45

When I see a Palestinian

1:48

child, a boy, a girl, pulled

1:51

from the rubble of a collapsed building,

1:54

that hits me in the gut as much as seeing

1:56

a child in Israel or anywhere else.

1:59

Secretary of State Antony Blinken. He

2:02

spoke with reporters before he traveled to Tel Aviv

2:04

to meet with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin

2:06

Netanyahu and other Israeli

2:08

leaders. After meeting with Netanyahu,

2:11

Blinken emphasized at a press conference that the Biden

2:13

administration stands in solidarity with

2:15

Israel's right to defend itself against Hamas,

2:18

which Israel says is hiding among civilians.

2:21

I also emphasize that the protection of civilians must

2:24

take place not just in Gaza, but

2:26

also in the West Bank, where incitement and extremist

2:29

violence against Palestinians must be

2:31

stopped and perpetrators held

2:33

accountable. Just this week, the Israeli

2:35

military launched airstrikes which hit the Jabalia

2:38

refugee camp in northern Gaza, twice.

2:41

And conditions in Gaza continue to deteriorate,

2:44

with only a trickle of humanitarian aid available.

2:48

Consider this. As U.S. leaders continue

2:51

to underscore Israel's right to defend itself,

2:53

there are growing concerns as the death toll of Palestinian

2:56

civilians goes up. One

2:58

question that's being asked, what are the rules

3:01

of war? The answer to that is just

3:03

ahead. From

3:08

NPR, I'm Adrian Ma. It's Friday,

3:11

November 3rd.

3:13

Hi, it's Terry Gross. I just interviewed

3:15

David Byrne. It was so much fun hearing him talk

3:18

about his life before, during, and after

3:20

Talking Heads. Now I know why

3:22

I never understood the lyrics to Burning Down the

3:24

House.

3:24

It's basically a lot of non-sequiturs

3:27

that have some kind of emotional impact.

3:29

Listen to the Fresh Air podcast

3:31

from NPR. Hey,

3:37

it's Kamilah Khashoggi from NPR's StoryCorps podcast.

3:40

I'm one of thousands of NPR Network voices coming

3:43

to you from over 200 local newsrooms across

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We bring all Americans closer together through

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so much more. The NPR

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3:55

What you hear changes everything.

3:57

Learn more at npr.org slash network.

3:59

It's Linda Holmes from NPR's

4:02

Pop Culture

4:02

Happy Hour podcast. I'm one of thousands

4:05

of NPR network voices coming to you

4:07

from over 200 local newsrooms across

4:09

the country. We bring all Americans

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closer together through free and independent

4:13

journalism, music, politics, culture,

4:16

and so much more. The NPR network,

4:18

what you hear changes everything.

4:26

It's considered this from NPR. Earlier

4:30

this week, Israeli military forces bombed

4:32

a refugee camp in Jabalia, just

4:34

north of Gaza City. They

4:36

said the area was a Hamas stronghold

4:39

that included underground tunnels and a command

4:41

center, and the Israeli military

4:43

blames Hamas for embedding itself

4:45

in crowded civilian areas or tunnels

4:47

underneath them. United

4:50

Nations human rights officials have said Israel's ground

4:52

invasion of Gaza could be a war crime.

4:55

So, are there rules that govern

4:57

how wars are waged? My colleague Mary

4:59

Louise Kelly spoke with Tom Dannenbaum

5:01

about this earlier this week, following the strike

5:04

on the refugee camp. He's an associate professor

5:06

of international law at the Fletcher School of Law

5:09

and Diplomacy. So I know there are entire

5:11

tomes and law school classes designed

5:13

for this, but can you briefly walk

5:15

us through what are the key laws

5:18

that might apply to an incident like

5:20

this in a densely populated urban area? Yeah.

5:23

There are

5:24

a set of rules that one has to

5:26

comply with in this kind of situation. The

5:28

first is the rule of distinction, which means

5:30

targeting military objectives

5:33

and not civilians or civilian objects. Second,

5:36

the prohibition on indiscriminate attacks, which is

5:38

to say that one has to have a discrete

5:41

military target, not target an

5:43

area in which there are military

5:45

objectives and also civilian

5:47

populations and civilian objects. Third,

5:50

one has to take adequate precautions, which

5:52

is to say, do everything feasible

5:54

to minimize the expected civilian

5:57

loss of life, injury, and damage to civilian objects.

6:00

And finally, not to engage in the attack at

6:02

all if the civilian loss of

6:04

life injury or damage to civilian

6:07

objects that would be expected from the

6:09

attack would be excessive

6:11

in relation to the military advantage

6:14

that the commander authorizing the attack anticipates

6:17

from that attack.

6:18

Who makes these laws?

6:20

These laws are codified

6:23

in various treaties going back to

6:25

the Geneva Conventions and updated in

6:27

the additional protocols in those conventions in 1977. But

6:30

also they are embedded in

6:33

what's called customary international law, which is the

6:35

practice of states understood

6:37

by those states to be legally determined,

6:40

which is reflected in how states articulate

6:42

these rules in their military handbooks and in

6:44

other expressions of their understanding

6:46

of the law. And then the follow

6:49

up question, who enforces these laws? Well,

6:51

there are various ways they can be enforced. They can be

6:53

enforced by domestic courts either within

6:56

the state that is engaged in a particular

6:58

action or indeed in any other state. And

7:00

additionally, in this particular context, the International

7:03

Criminal Court has jurisdiction over

7:05

any war crimes occurring on

7:08

the territory of Gaza. And

7:10

that includes in this particular context

7:12

the crime of engaging in a

7:14

disproportionate attack, an attack where

7:17

the expected

7:17

civilian loss of life or injury

7:19

or damage to civilian objects would be clearly

7:22

excessive in relation to the military

7:24

advantage anticipated. There

7:26

are a whole lot of details about this

7:28

incident that we don't yet know that

7:31

we're trying to pin down exactly what

7:34

happened, where how many people were injured

7:36

or killed by this. But we do

7:39

know Israel says,

7:41

look, we have been warning civilians to

7:43

leave this

7:44

area, northern Gaza. And Israel

7:47

also says we have the right to defend ourselves.

7:50

From a legal perspective, how

7:52

much weight do those defenses have? The

7:55

first thing to say is that acting in

7:57

self-defense doesn't justify

7:59

our own actions.

7:59

acting without constraint. The

8:02

law of armed conflict, including all of the rules

8:04

that I mentioned earlier, apply as

8:06

much to the actor

8:09

engaged in self-defense as any

8:11

actor engaged in aggression, both

8:14

in restrained by the same set of the

8:16

rules on the conduct of hostilities. The

8:18

second thing to say is, with respect to

8:20

warnings, issuing warnings

8:23

can be part of the required precautions

8:26

that I mentioned, taking all feasible measures to minimize

8:29

civilian harm that would be expected

8:31

from an attack. But complying

8:33

with the rule on precautions does

8:36

not itself relieve the

8:38

duty

8:38

to comply with the other rules. And

8:41

again, with the caveat that there's a lot we don't

8:43

know about what happened, I am curious for

8:45

someone with your background. As you

8:48

followed news of this incident, what are the questions

8:50

that spring to mind?

8:52

Well, the biggest question that springs to mind is,

8:56

what exactly did they expect in terms

8:58

of the civilian casualties?

9:01

They seem to be very high

9:04

for the targeting of a single commander.

9:07

The second question is, who was

9:09

that specific commander? What was the specific

9:11

military advantage anticipated

9:14

from taking that individual out? And

9:16

the third question that I think is worth bearing

9:18

in mind when making the proportionality

9:20

calculation or performing an analysis

9:23

of proportionality is, would

9:26

the same decision have been made were

9:29

the civilians that were harmed in this particular

9:31

context Israeli civilians? Civilians

9:34

are protected as civilians,

9:36

regardless of nationality, regardless of the party

9:38

with which they're associated. Would

9:41

the commander justify this attack,

9:45

regardless of the identity of the

9:47

civilians, and instead recognizing

9:49

them as having values inherent to

9:51

their humanity?

9:53

That was Tom Dannenbaum, Associate

9:56

Professor of International Law at the Fletcher School

9:58

of Law and Diplomacy.

10:00

I'm meeting with my colleague, Mary Lewis Kelly.

10:08

It's Consider This from NPR.

10:10

I'm Adrian Ma.

10:12

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