While Israelis are still burying their dead, those who enjoy the safety of the West are rushing to find way to condemn them for taking measures to defend themselves. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s announcement on Sunday that the IDF is imposing a “complete siege” on Gaza has thus prompted accusations that the Jewish state is itself committing war crimes. Such accusations display a complete ignorance of international law, as Avi Bell and Erielle Davidson explain:

Both the Geneva and Hague conventions include instructions on conducting sieges under international law, recognizing they may be effective tools for bringing a conflict to a rapid and successful end. The basic rule they outline: sieges are lawful unless deliberately aimed at starving the local population.

International pressure demanding Israel provide terrorists with electricity and other goods is absurd and without basis in international law. As the besieging state, Israel is not required to fund or assist Hamas’s war effort as it attempts to butcher Jews. Siege law includes a humanitarian aspect: international law requires that Israel facilitate the passage of food and medicine by third parties, but only if such goods can be reliably delivered without diversion to Hamas and without fear the goods will give Hamas an economic and military boost. Given Hamas’s sixteen-year exploitation of humanitarian aid and infiltration of human-rights and international organizations in Gaza, diversion is not merely a possibility—it is a certainty.

If governments and international organizations are serious about aiding Gazan civilians—to date, such organizations have been more invested in condemning Israel and immunizing Palestinian terrorists from accountability and punishment—they should devote their resources to facilitating the safe and rapid evacuation of Gaza’s civilian population outside the conflict zone. While this is a heady mission, it is not impossible: indeed, five times the population of Gaza was evacuated from Ukraine under fire.

Removing Gaza’s civilians will prevent them from being harmed as lawful collateral damage and block Hamas from using them as human shields. Humanitarian efforts should focus on cooperating with Israel and Egypt to allow Palestinians to surrender at Gaza’s Egyptian border, go through Israeli screening to prevent hostage smuggling or terrorists’ escape and reach safe locations outside the Middle East.

Robert Satloff has some harsh words for the U.S. government in this regard, words I take especially seriously because Satloff is someone inclined to political moderation. Why, he asks, have American diplomats failed to achieve anything in their endless rounds of talks in Doha and Cairo? Because

there is simply not enough pressure on Hamas to change course, accept a deal, and release the remaining October 7 hostages, stuck in nightmarish captivity. . . . In this environment, why should Hamas change course?

Publicly, the U.S. should bite the bullet and urge Israel to complete the main battle operations in Gaza—i.e., the Rafah operation—as swiftly and efficiently as possible. We should be assertively assisting with the humanitarian side of this.

Satloff had more to say about the hostages, especially the five American ones, in a speech he gave recently:

I am ashamed—ashamed of how we have allowed the story of the hostages to get lost in the noise of the war that followed their capture; ashamed of how we have permitted their release to be a bargaining chip in some larger political negotiation; ashamed of how we have failed to give them the respect and dignity and our wholehearted demand for Red Cross access and care and medicine that is our normal, usual demand for hostages.

If they were taken by Boko Haram, everyone would know their name. If they were taken by the Taliban, everyone would tie a yellow ribbon around a tree for them. If they were taken by Islamic State, kids would learn about them in school.

It is repugnant to see their freedom as just one item on the bargaining table with Hamas, as though they were chattel. These are Americans—and they deserve to be backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.