The Gaza Conflict, from an International Law Perspective Failure of Humanitarian Law and Restructuring of Global Governance

Abstract

The 2023-2025 Gaza conflict, which killed more than 35,000 people, has exposed the systemic failure of the contemporary international humanitarian law system. This article uses the Geneva Conventions and their additional protocols as an analytical framework, combined with the implementation dilemma of UN Security Council resolution 2728 (2024), Revealing the persistent violations of the principles of proportionality and distinction by the belligerents, especially the Israel Defense Forces-including indiscriminate attacks on medical facilities, journalists and civilian settlements. The study was conducted through three dimensions: first, deconstructing the legal roots of the international community’s “failure of collective action”, with a focus on the legal disputes over U.S. arms supplies and EU economic sanctions; Secondly, assess the effectiveness of China’s “Two-state Solution” reconstruction initiative, Russia’s “Humanitarian Corridor” program and the Arab League’s mediation action; Finally, a new mechanism of “preventive judicial intervention” was proposed, suggesting the strengthening of the pre-forensic rights of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the establishment of a United Nations standing conflict verification force. This paper particularly demonstrates the extended application of the definition of war crimes in Article 8 of the Rome Statute, providing an operational legal toolkit for future conflict prevention.