'Laws of war, open fire policy': Israeli's deadly airstrikes in West Bank putting civilians at grave risk

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00:00Well in the meantime let's take you to the Gaza Strip then where the World

00:04Health Organization has reached an agreement with Israel for humanitarian

00:08pauses in the fighting in order to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of

00:12children against polio. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the

00:16measures were not a ceasefire. Now the pauses are set to last three days and

00:22begin on Sunday. Health workers in Gaza will start a vaccination campaign

00:29against polio virus after Israel agreed with the World Health Organization to

00:34allow humanitarian pauses for a vaccine rollout. Over 640,000 children will be

00:40vaccinated across the Strip after the first case of polio appeared a few days

00:45ago in a 10-month-old baby in Deir al-Bala. We stress the critical importance

00:50for all parties to adhere to the commitments that have been made. 1.26

00:55million doses of vaccines and 500 vaccine carriers have been delivered to

00:59Gaza with 400,000 additional doses to arrive soon. Starting in central Gaza

01:05this coming Sunday then moving to the south and then north of the territory.

01:09The pauses will last between 6 a.m. and 3 p.m. for three consecutive days in each

01:14zone. Polio virus is highly infectious and spreads easily through contaminated

01:20water and sewage. It affects children under the age of 5, sometimes causing

01:24paralysis or deformities. As Gaza faces collapsed infrastructure and a severe

01:30sanitation crisis, an outbreak of diseases like polio is highly likely. The

01:36vaccine will be given orally in two drops. Health workers will have to

01:40administer a second round in one month's time to complete the vaccination but

01:45arrangements for further humanitarian pauses have yet to be discussed.

01:51Live with us this afternoon is Bill Van Esveld from Human Rights Watch where he

01:56works particularly on the issue of children's rights. Good afternoon to you,

01:59thanks for joining us today. Thanks for having me. How important is it that these

02:04humanitarian pauses do hold starting from Sunday and that the polio vaccines

02:09are distributed? Well look, every major United Nations and other humanitarian

02:15agency has been calling for a ceasefire to allow them to vaccinate kids for

02:19polio. They wanted a week, they're getting it looks like three days and I

02:24think there's a few things to note here. If the root cause of polio is what we're

02:29concerned about and if stopping the spread of waterborne diseases other than

02:33polio, which won't be fixed with a polio vaccine like we're talking to doctors

02:37who say everybody in Gaza has diarrhea, hepatitis A is spreading, people are

02:41going to die from things other than polio. So what's the root cause of that

02:44and how do we address it? A ceasefire, you know, a temporary three-day pause

02:49isn't enough. What we need is to see the pressure that's been applied on Israel

02:53by its allies for this three-day pause to be applied to end the siege. I mean

02:58it's a completely unlawful situation where you're depriving two million

03:02people of clean water, you have rendered all the infrastructure of sanitation,

03:08sewage treatment plants are offline, sewage is spreading everywhere. You know

03:12there's no military advantage to that. Denying two million people of water and

03:16sanitation doesn't help you defeat your enemies. There's really no argument. We

03:19need to see an end to that siege. People who try to repair water infrastructure

03:24have been targeted. Warehouses full of water repair kit have been destroyed. You

03:29know this is what needs to end so that we can end the, you know, disastrous

03:33unprecedented for 25 years outbreak of polio in Gaza. You use two different

03:38words there, the pause and a ceasefire. Now it's worth reiterating that the

03:42Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu has said this starting on Sunday if it does

03:47hold won't be a ceasefire. What do you think about that and what do you

03:51think about the fact that he's given the green light to this? Why has he agreed?

03:54I mean yes it's true. It doesn't, in a way it doesn't matter what we call it. I mean

03:59he's making the point that it's not going to be a permanent ceasefire in

04:03any way, that this is only going to be a pause. But you know I think to go back to

04:07the key issue here, the thing that's driving disease and death in Gaza is the

04:12blockade. Coupled with that is the fact that everybody is under, you know,

04:17evacuation orders and they're being pushed into this tiny territory. A leaked

04:23USAID memo from Jerusalem a few days ago noted that, you know, 88,000 people per

04:30square mile is the population density of this Israeli declared humanitarian zone.

04:34And these people are just on the sand with no infrastructure, with nothing. You

04:39know, that is a perfect recipe for the spread of disease. So yes, any ceasefire,

04:44any pause, whatever you want to call it, would be better than nothing. But it's

04:48far from enough to address the root causes that are causing people to suffer.

04:50Indeed, as you say, this humanitarian crisis in Gaza is absolutely desperate

04:56and will be whether or not this vaccination campaign works out. Look,

04:59what kind of pressure and from whom does Human Rights Watch think needs to be

05:05applied on the Israeli authorities now to try and secure a more meaningful

05:10ceasefire? What we really need is just for Israel to abide by its international

05:15law obligations. By the way, those obligations are really pretty flexible.

05:19The laws of war were written by states to allow their militaries to fight. So

05:23again, it's not like asking the Israeli military to tie both hands behind its

05:26back. It's asking the Israeli military not to engage in collective punishment,

05:29to abide by the International Court of Justice's three provisional measures,

05:34ordering it to open border crossings. And the obvious elephant in the room

05:39here is the United States. You know, the United States recently completed its

05:42500th airlift of weaponry to the Israeli military. We need to see that end. There

05:47should be a complete suspension of weapons shipments to Israel by the United

05:51States and its other allies.

05:53You mentioned evacuation orders a bit earlier on, and we know that Daryl Balach

05:58in the centre of Gaza is under an evacuation order now. It's worth

06:02reiterating that had been until very recently a hub for the United Nations

06:07when, because they had been forced to leave their earlier hub in Rafa in the

06:11south of Gaza. We know most Palestinians in Gaza have been displaced multiple

06:15times in this conflict. So what kind of impact in your knowledge are these

06:21evacuation orders having on polio, but on the humanitarian crisis more widely

06:26in Gaza?

06:27So you've got a situation of spreading disease. You've got a situation where we

06:31may already be at a tipping point or beyond it in terms of the spread of

06:35disease. But at the same time, everything is being made worse when you force

06:39people into a tiny territory and you force the humanitarian aid agencies that

06:44had been able to deliver at least a little bit of aid to suspend their

06:47operations through more evacuation orders. And by the way, those evacuation

06:51orders also affected water and sanitation in that area. So even before

06:57when, you know, a few days ago before these evacuation orders were issued,

07:01there was a little bit of water available in Deir el-Bala. That's already

07:04plummeted by about 80%. Desalination facilities, sewage treatment plants, you

07:09know, water wells, everything has also been forced to suspend. And now you've

07:12got a situation where most of Gaza's population is being told to live in a

07:16tiny, sandy area with no infrastructure. And an Oxfam report that came out in

07:21July said there were 4,132 people per toilet in that area. You know, the people

07:28of Gaza has been living on less than five litres of water per day, on

07:31average for 10 months. The minimum in a brief temporary emergency situation for

07:36survival should be 15 litres a day. You know, it's beyond catastrophic.

07:42Just one final question for you, sir. I want to ask you about the West Bank. You

07:47may have heard our interview earlier with a journalist who's in the city of

07:50Tulkarem today. It's the third day of a major Israeli offensive there. I just

07:54wonder what Human Rights Watch makes of what we're seeing there right now.

08:00I mean, our concern is that, is exactly what your preview mentioned, that some

08:05tactics and the kind of rules of engagement that the Israeli military

08:09seems to be applying in the West Bank might maybe be appropriate to a total

08:14war zone. But that is not the situation in the West Bank. The West Bank is a

08:18fully occupied territory. The laws on the use of force there are basically

08:22those of policing. So if you want to go after people and arrest them because

08:25they have guns or they're trying to kill you, you go ahead and do those arrests.

08:29But, you know, we used to be concerned and we tracked a lot of excessive force

08:33by Israeli soldiers using light arms, you know, assault rifles, sniper rifles.

08:39Now we've got airstrikes. More than 130 people have been killed in the West

08:42Bank this year by airstrikes. That is absolutely unprecedented. Just a few

08:48days ago, a man was killed in his kitchen preparing milk for his baby. He

08:52had no, by an airstrike, he had no connection to anything that the Israeli

08:57military was after. And if you start doing airstrikes and applying kind of a

09:01laws of war, open fire policy to the West Bank, you're going to see more

09:05civilian deaths like this.

09:08Bill Van Esfeld from Human Rights Watch. It's been great to talk to you this

09:11afternoon, sir. Thank you for your time.

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