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.

Last week, the New York Times reported, based on unnamed sources within the Trump administration, that the president had asked Israel not to carry out a planned strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. That is, somebody deliberately gave this information to the press, which later tried to confirm it by speaking with other officials. Amit Segal writes that, “according to figures in Israel’s security establishment,” this is “the most serious leak in Israel’s history.” He explains:

As Israel is reportedly planning what may well be one of its most consequential military operations ever, the New York Times lays out for the Iranians what Israel will target, when it will carry out the operation, and how. That’s not just any other leak.

Seth Mandel looks into the leaker’s logic:

The primary purpose of the [Times] article is not as a record of internal deliberations but as an instrument of policy itself. Namely, to obstruct future U.S. and Israeli foreign policy by divulging enough details of Israel’s plans in order to protect Iran’s nuclear sites. The idea is to force Israeli planners back to the drawing board, thus delaying a possible future strike on Iran until Iranian air defenses have been rebuilt.

The leak is the point. It’s a tactical play, more or less, to help Iran torpedo American action.

The leaker, Mandel explains—and the Times itself implies—is likely aligned with the faction in the administration that wants to see the U.S. retreat from the world stage and from its alliance with Israel, a faction that includes Vice-President J.D. Vance, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and the president’s own chief of staff Susie Wiles.

Yet it’s also possible, if less likely, that the plans were leaked in support of administration policy rather than out of factional infighting. Eliezer Marom argues that the leak was “part of the negotiations and serves to clarify to the Iranians that there is a real attack plan that Trump stopped at the last moment to conduct negotiations.”