to my reality: not dust and not fire. What

will I do without roses from Samarkand? What

will I do in a theater that burnishes the singers with its lunar

stones? Our weight has become light like our houses

in the faraway winds. We have become two friends of the strange

creatures in the clouds … and we are now loosened

from the gravity of identity’s land. What will we do … what

will we do without exile, and a long night

that stares at the water?   — Mahmoud Darwish

Ebrahimi Nabavi was an Iranian satirist.  On January 15, 2025,   he took his life at the age of sixty four in Silver Spring, Md.   He never felt at home, whether in Brussels or in the vicinity of Washington, D.C.  He always wanted to go back to Iran. He was one of the reformists who took on the mantle to criticize the Islamic Republic.   He was imprisoned.  He shared the same block with other famous prisoners. 

He did stand-up comedy.  He wrote satirical views on different media outlets, first in Iran and later in Europe and in the U.S.  

I didn’t always agree with him.  He wrote an article to which I felt the need to reply.  I wish I had known him better. 

But what happens to luminaries who die in exile, either naturally or by taking their own lives?

In 1942, Stefan Zweig took his life in Brazil.   He had seen the devastation of his homeland Austria and, later Germany, by the Nazis.  He could not tolerate it. 

Such people tend to be more sensitive than others.  They are not weak but more emotional perhaps.  Or this world of ours is too much for them to handle. 

Gholamhossein Saedi, a renowned playwright, a physician from Tabriz was one of them.  He immigrated to Paris. He never liked the city, even though he tried.   He wrote his essays and tried very hard to become part of Parisian intellectual life.  He said, I can relate to Paris, but Paris is not Tehran.  My pen does not write well in Paris.  

“All the buildings in Paris are like a theatre décor.   I feel as if I am living in a post card,” he wrote.

In a way he also committed suicide.  He died at the age of 49. 

I met him in Tehran after the Revolution at his house and then, much later, in Paris.  He was not the same man.

He was laid to rest in Père Lachaise where many famous people are buried.   A few weeks ago, his tombstone was desecrated in a terrible way. Someone urinated on it.

Saedi was a famous person; he had been incarcerated by the Shah and then by the Islamic Republic.  A few of his plays were turned into films, among them the Cow by the famous film maker, Dariush Mehrjoui. 

Ebrahim Nabavi took his life perhaps because he could not stand to be away from his homeland.

Who knows?

What drives some people to suicide?   

They both shared one thing:   A long-lasting love for Iran.  An Iran they could neither live in nor leave behind.

American television news has almost completely ignored Israeli (and US) war crimes in Gaza, which have been taking place daily, but are not apparently deemed “news” at CNN, MSNBC, Fox, CBS, ABC, etc.

Here let me just excerpt some statements by the former US government officials:

Hala Rharrit was an American diplomat working on human rights: “What is happening in Gaza would not be able to happen without U.S. arms. That’s without a doubt.”

“I would show the complicity that was indisputable. Fragments of U.S. bombs next to massacres of– of ch– mostly children. And that’s the devastation. It’s been overwhelmingly children.” (Emphasis added.)

“I would show images of children that were starved to death. In one incident, I was basically berated, “Don’t put that image in there. We don’t wanna see it. We don’t wanna see that the children are starving to death.”

Hala Rharrit: The level of anger throughout the Arab world, and I– I’ll say beyond the Arab world– is palpable. Protests began erupting in the Arab world, which I was also documenting, with people burning American flags. This is very significant because we worked so hard after the war on terror to strengthen ties with the Arab world.

[Cecilia Vega: You believe that this has put a target on America’s back, you’ve said.]

Hala Rharrit: 100%.

Hala Rharrit: Yes. I don’t say them lightly. And I say it as someone that myself has survived two terrorist attacks. My first assignment was in the U.S. Embassy in Yemen. I survived a mortar attack. I say it as someone who has worked intensely on these issues and has intensely monitored the region for two decades.

After three months of the Gaza War in 2023, she was told her reports were no longer needed.

Josh Paul spent 11 years as a director in the State Department’s Bureau of Political – Military Affairs.

Josh Paul: Most of the bombs come from America. Most of the technology comes from America. And all of the fighter jets, all of Israel’s fixed-wing fleet– comes from America.

Josh Paul: There is a linkage between every single bomb that is dropped in Gaza and the U.S. because every single bomb that is dropped is dropped from an American-made plane.

Josh Paul: After October 7th, there was no space for debate or discussion. I was part of email chains where there were very clear directions saying, “Here are the latest requests from Israel. These need to be approved by 3:00 p.m.”

Josh Paul: “This came from the president, from the secretary and from those around them.”

Josh Paul: I would argue exactly the opposite. I think the moment of October 7th was a moment of incredible worldwide solidarity with Israel. And had Israel leveraged that moment to press for a real, just and lasting peace, I think we would be in a very different place now in which Israel would not be facing this increasing isolation around the world and in which its hostages would be free.

“America in Gaza,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3, Clip2Comic

Andrew Miller was the deputy assistant secretary of state for Israeli-Palestinian affairs.

Andrew Miller: The Israelis were using those bombs in some instances to target one or two individuals in densely packed areas. And in enough instances, we saw that was in question, how Israel was using it. And those weapons were suspended.

Andrew Miller: There were conversations from the earliest days about U.S. desires and expectations for what Israel would do. But they weren’t defined as a red line.

Andrew Miller: I’m unaware of any red lines being imposed beyond the normal language about complying with international law, international humanitarian law, the law of armed conflict.

Andrew Miller: I believe the message that Prime Minister Netanyahu received is that he was the one in the driver’s seat, and he was controlling this, and U.S. support was going to be there, and he could take it for granted.

Andrew Miller: There is a danger– that if the U.S. was not providing support to Israel, Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran would see that as an opportunity to go after Israel. However, we could have said, we are taking this step because we believe this class of weapons– is being used inappropriately. But if you use this moment to accelerate your attacks against Israel, then we are going to immediately lift our prohibition.

Andrew Miller: Yes. I think it’s fair to say Israel does get the benefit of the doubt. There is a deference to Israeli accounts of what’s taken place.

Here is the segment on YouTube:

Biden policy on Israel-Gaza sparks warnings, dissent, resignations | 60 Minutes

In all, India has roughly 100 gigawatts of installed solar capacity. The United States, with an economy 7.5 times as big and vastly more resources, only has 179 gigawatts of solar.

India saw 18.5 gigawatts of new utility-scale solar projects implemented, nearly 3 times as much as in the previous year.

Indians installed 4.59 gigawatts of rooftop solar, impelled by a government program called the Prime Minister’s” Free Electricity Program [Muft Bijli Yojana],” or solar for residences, which was put into effect by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It successfully promoted 700,000 rooftop solar installations within 10 months of its start. It aims to put rooftop solar on 10 million homes and to spend $8.7 billion.

The big increase in solar installations is thought to be in part because of government incentives and in part because of a steep drop in the price of Chinese solar panels this past year.

India is emerging as one of the more important countries in the world by nominal over-all gross domestic product (GDP). The IMF is projecting its 2025 GDP to be $4,271,922, only a bit less than Japan, which in turn has a somewhat smaller economy than Germany. India is therefore the world’s fifth largest economy, ahead of Britain, France, Italy and Canada. Of course, India’s enormous population is such that its per capital GDP is small. But if we are talking about the place of the country as a whole, it is becoming one of the leading world economies.

“Rashtrapati Bhavan,” Digtial, Dream / Dream v3, Clip2Comic, 2024

India’s transition to green energy is therefore consequential. It is currently the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases after China and the United States. Again, its per capita emissions are small.

Renewables make up 43.6% of the Indian electricity grid, a more impressive number than can be offered by China or the United States. It amounts to 209 gigawatts in total. India hopes to put in 500 gigawatts of renewables by 2030.

Total installed renewable capacity surged nearly 14% in 2024.

India imports half of the natural gas it uses, and spent some $15 billion a year on these imports in 2024. The Financial Express reports that India’s natural gas import costs rose by 18.5% last year, reaching $7.7 billion in the first half of the current fiscal year. That was up from $6.5 billion in the same period last year. This increase is attributed to a higher demand, particularly from city gas distribution companies and the power sector.

India is still poor on a per capita basis and would benefit from not having to spend $14 billion a year on fossil gas imports, especially since it could have the same energy for free from the sun.

Further, being beholden to Trump, the UAE, and Nigeria for imports of Liquefied Natural Gas is a security issue for India, which has such abundant solar that it does not need to put itself in that situation. US sanctions have already forced India to back off imports of Russian fossil gas.

The current estimate by the Ministry of Health for Palestinians killed by Israeli weaponry in their total war on Gaza is 46,000. The Lancet study suggests the true number today is closer to 70,000.

Researchers said that they used data from the Palestinian Ministry of Health hospital records, a Ministry of Health online survey, and obituaries that appeared on social media to estimate the true number of deaths between October 7, 2023, and June 30, 2024.

The researchers then used statistical models to look at the overlap between these sources. After combining the results, they calculated the estimated total deaths during this period. They then compared age- and sex-specific death rates with those from 2022. This method has been used successfully in other conflict zones.

The team estimated 64,260 deaths due to traumatic injury (i.e. by military weaponry) during the study period, October – June. The Ministry of Health estimate at that time was 37,877 (that is, the actual number was 69% higher)

AFP interviewed Patrick Ball, a sociologist of human rights on whose doctoral committee I served years ago, about the method. He has used it to estimate deaths in conflicts “in Guatemala, Kosovo, Peru and Colombia.” AFP writes that he told the agency that “the well-tested technique had been used for centuries and that the researchers had reached ‘a good estimate’ for Gaza.”

Women, minors under 18, and the elderly over 65 comprised 59.1% of those killed militarily, or 28,257 deaths among those for whom sex and age information was known.

It should be pointed out that only a small number of military-age men were members of the paramilitary al-Qassam Brigades or the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, so that the percentage of innocent civilians among the dead is much higher than 59%.

Juan Cole, Gaza Yet Stands. Informed Comment KDP. Click here to Buy or order the paperback from your local bookstore. All proceeds go to UNICEF for their Gaza work.

In the U.S. Afghanistan war, the Watson Institute at Brown estimated that some 271,000 people were killed, including 71,344 civilians. That would indicate that 29.6% of those killed were innocent civilians. Over-all, the civilian kill ratio is most wars is 30% to 50%, so the Israeli military in Gaza is clearly much more brutal than the norm.

The researchers found peaks of deaths in the first three months of the Gaza War, in autumn 2023. This was a time when we know that the Israeli air force dropped hundreds of 2000-lb. bombs on residential complexes. A United Nations study found that in many of these attacks, no clear military target was visible.

The casualties spiked again in June, during the Israeli campaign against Rafah, which the Biden administration and the International Court of Justice had forbidden as a red line because it was the last part of the Gaza Strip that still had the urban infrastructure to keep people alive and healthy. The Israelis razed it and expelled its inhabitants, many of them being displaced for a third or fourth time, to already-destroyed neighborhoods in the center.

The team found that deaths were under-reported by 41% by the Ministry of Health. Most of the newspaper reporting misunderstood this way of stating the statistic. What they found was that casualties were 59% more numerous than the Ministry of Health reported.

The study only treated deaths from military actions and weaponry (“traumatic”) deaths. Last July, the Lancet published an estimate that as of that moment, 186,000 Palestinians in Gaza would die over time because of infectious diseases, exposure, and lack of water and food, as a result of Israeli strategy and tactics. That number is surely much higher now.

As the experts quoted by Matt McGrath at the BBC point out, climate change certainly played a role in the destruction of Pacific Palisades and Altadena yesterday in Los Angeles, though its precise effect has yet to be calculated.

He cites the Director of the Centre for Wildfire Research at Swansea University, Professor Stefan Doerr, saying, “While fires are common and natural in this region, California has seen some of the most significant increases in the length and extremity of the fire weather season globally in recent decades, driven largely climate change.”

Doerr goes on to caution that the precise contribution of human-caused climate change to yesterday’s conflagration has yet to be estimated. Still, the only question is how much our carbon dioxide and methane emissions turbocharged the wildfires, not whether they did. Was it by 10% or 30%? There is some indication it could have been by 40%! (See below).

Climate is long-term weather patterns. Weather is a one-off. A two-day downpour can be weather. A long-term increase in rainfall over previous averages would be climate change.

The ways in which weather contributed to the Los Angeles catastrophe are easier to specify. California had a twenty-year drought that ended two years ago. The plentiful rainfall since then caused a lot of shrubs and greenery to spring up. Then, this spring, summer and fall turned extremely dry. The December rains did not come. Usually there would have been 4 inches by early January. It was under an inch. That water would have tamped down the fire risk. Then, the Santa Ana winds blowing west through the mountains were unusually strong and hot, and hit places they usually missed.

“Blaze Stalks L.A.,” Digital, Midjourney, 2024.

But why has this year been so dry, creating abundant “fuel” for the wildfire demons?

Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA, pointed in a scientific paper to the way in which burning fossil fuels and putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere has caused more frequent dry autumns, and caused them to be drier for longer. Since the Santa Ana winds hit in fall and winter, if the dry season is extended, it increasingly overlaps with the winds. That is a recipe for disaster, as we just saw. Swain cites another study of the years 1960 – 2019 showing that November has gotten consistently drier over the past 60 years. We saw that again this fall. But it wasn’t weather, since there is a clear pattern of desiccation in the 11th month. It is climate.

Worse, Swain thinks we may see more and more of this deadly overlap as humans heat up the earth.

He also cites studies showing that winter rains may be concentrated later in the year. You could have some showers in October in the old days, and November could be wet. Increasingly, those months are dry, and rains fall December through February, maybe especially January-February.

I’ve long noticed how much it rains in the Raymond Chandler mysteries set in Los Angeles. Except for February, I don’t remember it being that rainy, cool and miserable in L.A. At first I thought it was because Chandler was British and he was importing his weather imagery to southern California. But after reading Swain I wonder if the rain wasn’t just spread out more in the 1930s and 1940s, and whether there didn’t used to be more of it.

As for the percentage by which human-caused climate change has ramped up the dangers, we have a study that suggests a particular number. A 2022 paper by Linnia R. Hawkins et al. subjected the teens of this century to a computer study comparing the current likelihood of autumn wildfires in southern California, northern California and Oregon to what it would be without human-caused climate change. They found a 40% increase in the likelihood:

We show that while present-day anthropogenic climate change has . . . increased the likelihood of extreme fire weather indices by 40% in areas where recent autumn wind-driven fires have occurred in northern California and Oregon. The increase was primarily through increased autumn fuel aridity and warmer temperatures during dry wind events. These findings illustrate that anthropogenic climate change is exacerbating autumn fire weather extremes that contribute to high-impact catastrophic fires in populated regions of the western US.

The authors, however, cite literature that does not find a strong climate change effect for changes in the Santa Ana winds. It is possible that those 100-mile-an-hour gales hitting places they usually don’t, such as Altadena and Pasadena, were just weather. But combined with the shift of rains later in the year and the extra heat and aridity in the fall being driven by climate change, they proved deadly.

The Statute of the International Court of Justice, Article 63, provides for the notification of all member states about procedures regarding conventions that might affect them, and that “every state so notified has the right to intervene in the proceedings.” In this case, the relevant document is the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948.

The Irish intervention addresses the difficulty of proving that officials of a state have deliberately set themselves a goal of wiping out another people in whole or in part. It says, “Ireland respectfully submits that the perpetrator does not need to have, as his or her purpose, the commission of the crime of genocide when committing any one or more of the material elements of the crime. The crime may also be committed where a perpetrator – regardless of his or her purpose – knows (or should know) that the natural and probable consequence of these acts is either to destroy or contribute to the destruction of the protected group, in whole or part, as such, and proceeds regardless.”

That is, if a reasonable person can foresee that dropping 500-lb. bombs on residential apartment complexes, destroying water pipes, destroying most of the hospitals, and making people move from one tent camp to another once they were rendered homeless, would have a genocidal effect, and nevertheless committed these acts, the person is guilty of genocide even if there isn’t a smoking gun document of intent.

Ireland’s document concludes, “It is evident from the drafting history of the Convention that the term intent is not limited to the purpose of the perpetrator, but can also comprehend knowledge of the foreseeable consequence of the act committed.”

It is sort of like if a person kept shooting a gun in the general direction of a crowd of people, and ends up killing someone, the shooter would be guilty of murder even if there was no specific intent to kill that individual, because a reasonable person could foresee that shooting the gun repeatedly in the direction of a crowd would eventually result in a death.

Ireland’s Declaration of Intervention also tackles the difficulty that genocides often take place in the context of war-fighting, so that it is difficult to determine whether what appear to be genocidal acts are simply “collateral damage,” the unfortunate civilian deaths that inadvertently attend any battle.

The Declaration quotes the ICJ itself on one way to resolve this condundrum: “The Court restated this test where it said that ‘for a pattern of conduct, that is to SllJJ, a consistent series of acts carried out over a specific period of time, to be accepted as evidence of genocidal intent, it would have to be such that it could only point to the existence of such intent, that is to say, that it can only reasonably be understood as reflecting that intent [ … ]’

This can be characterised as the ‘only reasonable inference’ test.”

Photo by Roman Boed,
from PxHere.

Ireland points out that in the real world, actions can be taken for more than one purpose. That is, a country may kill large numbers of civilians while fighting a war both because that country is fighting a war and because it wants to destroy a group in whole or in part. The mere fact of war-fighting cannot be invoked to rule out genocidal intent.

The Declaration says, “Ireland submits that, in order to avoid the possibility of genocide being excluded in most, if not all, cases of anned conflict the application of the ‘only reasonable inference’ test clarifies that a pattern of conduct can only be fully explained as intended to destroy – at least in part – the protected group. In applying the test, Ireland respectfully submits that it is not necessary that the acts concerned should be exclusively intended to destroy the group but could also be committed with the intent of achieving one or more other objectives.”

The Irish cabinet made the decision to intervene at a cabinet meeting in early December. Deputy Prime Minister (Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs) Micheál Martin said then that:

“There has been a collective punishment of the Palestinian people through the intent and impact of military actions of Israel in Gaza, leaving 44,000 dead and millions of civilians displaced.

“By legally intervening in South Africa’s case, Ireland will be asking the ICJ to broaden its interpretation of what constitutes the commission of genocide by a State.

“We are concerned that a very narrow interpretation of what constitutes genocide leads to a culture of impunity in which the protection of civilians is minimised.

“Ireland’s view of the Convention is broader and prioritises the protection of civilian life – as a committed supporter of the Convention, the government will promote that interpretation in its intervention in this case.”

He added on another occasion, “Fundamentally, Ireland is asking the court to broaden its interpretation of genocide within the Genocide Convention.”

Although the center-right Irish government has made it clear that it stands with South Africa in charging Israel with genocide in Gaza, the ICJ rules on such interventions give Ireland the position of adding to the deliberations. Article 82 of the Rules of the Court provide for signatories intervening in cases to engage in the “identification of the particular provisions of the convention the construction of which it considers to be in question” and to submit a list of documents in support of a case.

Yousef became the eight baby to freeze to death in Gaza.

In a statement yesterday, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) warned that “cold weather and lack of shelter are causing the death of newborns in Gaza, while 7,700 newborns lack life-saving care.

The displaced Palestinians have been living in tents made of cloth and nylon, due to the scarcity of essentials such as water and food, in addition to a severe shortage of clothing, blankets and heating during the winter.

Many tents flooded and were blown away from the winter winds last week, leaving many exposed to the elements and putting the lives of infants further at risk.

[See Juan Cole, Gaza Yet Stands (Ann Arbor, 2024) ]

Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, commented,

“Our humanitarian effort in Gaza, already struggling, faces mounting obstacles.

“Just three examples from the last couple of days alone. An Israeli strike seriously injured three people at a known food distribution point where a partner of the World Food Programme was operating. Israeli soldiers fired over 16 bullets at a clearly marked UN convoy at the checkpoint from the south to the north. Armed Palestinian gangs hijacked six fuel tankers entering from the Kerem Shalom crossing, leaving us hardly any fuel for aid operations.

“These incidents are part of a dangerous pattern of sabotage and deliberate disruption. On Friday night, Israeli forces increased attacks during the movement of a 74-truck aid convoy. A drone strike hit a vehicle from the local community which was protecting part of the convoy. And just a few days ago, a UN mission out of Jabalya ran into hostile Israeli soldiers who threatened critical patients and arrested four of them.

“The reality is that despite our determination to deliver food, water, and medicine to survivors, our efforts to save lives are at breaking point. There is no meaningful civil order. Israeli forces are unable or unwilling to ensure the safety of our convoys. Statements by Israeli authorities vilify our aid workers even as the military attacks them. Community volunteers who accompany our convoys are being targeted. There is now a perception that it is dangerous to protect aid convoys but safe to loot them.”

The World Food Programme complained about Israel firing on its aid workers: “The World Food Programme (WFP) strongly condemns the horrifying incident on January 5, when a clearly marked WFP convoy was shot at by Israeli forces near the Wadi Gaza checkpoint, putting the lives of our staff at tremendous risk and leaving the vehicles immobilized. The convoy, consisting of three vehicles carrying eight staff members, came under hostile fire despite having received all of the necessary clearances from Israeli authorities. At least 16 bullets struck the vehicles. Thankfully, no staff members were injured in this terrifying encounter.”

ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE: A @WFP convoy, clearly marked & carrying 8 team members, was shot at by Israeli forces near Wadi Gaza despite prior clearances. Humanitarians are #NotATarget!

We MUST have safe, secure access to continue delivering life-saving aid. https://t.co/ai10NBO7re pic.twitter.com/ut73Eg4wKl

— Cindy McCain (@WFPChief) January 6, 2025

“Flour,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3, IbisPaint, 2024

UN News adds that the firing on the WFP convoy took place at that same time as reports that a projectile hit a flour distribution center located in central Gaza, managed by a United Nations aid collaborator, over the weekend, critically wounding three relief workers. Personnel from the UN agency present near the storage facility recounted hearing distressing screams following the impact. Additionally, they reported instances of looting and gunfire that occurred after the explosion on Sunday at the MA’AN Development Center site.

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Passages were added from WFP and the UN.

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Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – According to Junio Silva at the Brazilian newspaper Metrópoles , on December 31, Federal Judge Raquel Soares Charelli directed the Federal Police to open an immediate investigation into an Israeli soldier vacationing in Brazil who is alleged to have perpetrated war crimes in Gaza.

The court was petitioned by the Hind Rajab Foundation, an organization based in Belgium and operating globally to expose crimes against humanity, war crimes, and human rights violations in Palestine. The foundation and other sources provided 500 pages of legal documentation connected to the case, gathered through open-source investigation. A lot of Israeli soldiers have posted videos to Telegram and other outlets boasting of their atrocities, which allow organizations like the Hind Rajab Foundation to build a case.

The foundation’s petition included a plea for the detention of the Israeli national lest he flee the country.

Junio writes that the accused Israeli national is alleged to have participated in demolishing a residential complex in the Gaza Strip with explosives in November 2024. This act reportedly occurred outside an active combat zone. The demolished homes had served as refuge for internally displaced Palestinians within the enclave following the onset of the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Junio quotes the Hind Rajab Foundation’s attorney, Maira Pinheiro, who clarified that the decision leverages the Rome Statute, a treaty that Brazil ratified. The Rome Statute established the International Criminal Court (ICC) and has been in effect since 2002.

Pinheiro said, “Since Brazil is a signatory to the Rome Statute [Como o Brasil é signatário do Estatuto de Roma], universal jurisdiction also applies within Brazilian territory [vale também em território brasileiro a jurisdição universal]. This means any member state must act to ensure crimes outlined in the Statute – war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide – are investigated and prosecuted. Based on the extraterritoriality principle in Article 7 of the Brazilian Penal Code, Brazil has jurisdiction to investigate criminal offenses committed abroad when they arise from international treaties and the perpetrator enters Brazilian territory.”

Rio de Janeiro, 2009. © Juan Cole.

The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

Camila França at Brasil 247 notes, “The decision is considered a landmark in the application of international law within national territory.”

She notes that a similar case is unfolding in Chile, where 620 attorneys have filed a case against a member of Israel’s 749th Combat Engineering Battalion who was vacationing in Chilean Patagonia. Lawyer and former ambassador Nelson Hadad in Santiago also called for the immediate arrest of that individual. She writes that the complaint is supported by Chilean Senator Francisco Chahuan, who said that the Public Prosecutor’s office was in receipt of mounds of evidence, including videos and photos from the accused’s Instagram account, which allegedly depict his involvement in the destruction of neighborhoods, civilian infrastructure, and cultural sites in Gaza. She notes that Senator Chahuan alleges that these actions violated the Geneva Conventions and constitute war crimes and genocide.