‘International Law’ is an illusion for Palestinians | Ahmad Ibsais

As a law student, I know the struggle for Palestinian liberation will not be won in the halls of the United Nations or courts of The Hague

It has been more than a year of the ongoing onslaught in Gaza, where experts and common people across the world recognize that a genocide is taking place. We have seen the decimation of Gaza's hospitals, the use of starvation and disease as weapons of war, attacks on aid workers and the prevention of humanitarian aid, the invasion of Lebanon, Syria and West Bank cities, the arbitrary detention of 9,000 Palestinians, the use of white phosphorus, and the series of countless bombs, bombs and more bombs - all individually war crimes, and collectively, affronts to the very idea of international law and jurisprudence.

Like millions around the world, I watched Sha'ban al-Dalou, a 19-year-old student, burn alive as he slept in a tent outside the al-Aqsa Martyrs' hospital in central Gaza. I've seen my people unable to do anything as flames swallowed yet another martyr, another hospital, another set of refugees in tents. I've watched Israeli occupation forces in north Gaza prepare what appeared to be a mass grave, outside Indonesian hospital, lining up Palestinian men and boys with their hands tied and eyes blindfolded.

Ahmad Ibsais is a first generation Palestinian American, law student and poet who writes the newsletter State of Siege