Since October 7 last year, humanitarians said the war in Gaza and Lebanon is flouting international humanitarian law (IHL).

"The rules of war are being broken in such a flagrant way... (it) is setting a precedent that we have not seen in any other conflict," Marwan Jilani, the vice president of the Palestine Red Crescent (PCRS), told AFP.

Last week, during a meeting in Geneva of the 191 national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies, he lamented a "total disregard for human life (and) for international humanitarian law".

Amid Israel's devastating retaliatory operation in the Gaza Strip, local aid workers are striving to deliver assistance while facing the same risks as the rest of the population, he said.

The PCRS has more than 900 staff and several thousand volunteers inside Gaza, where Israel also killed more than 43,000 people, and wounded over 101,100 others, according to the Palestinian health ministry, and where the UN says virtually the entire population has been repeatedly displaced.

'Deliberate targeting' 
 

"They're part of the community," said Jilani. "I think every single member of our staff has lost family members."

He decried especially what he said was a "deliberate targeting of the health sector".

Israel continues to reject the international accusations and claims that it is carrying out its military operations in both Gaza and Lebanon in accordance with international law.

But Jilani said that "many of our staff, including doctors and nurses... were detained, were taken for weeks (and) were tortured".

Since the war began, 34 PRCS staff and volunteers have been killed in Gaza, and another two in the West Bank, "most of them while serving", he said.

Four other staff members are still being held, their whereabouts and condition unknown.

Jilani warned that the disregard for basic international law in the expanding conflict was eroding the belief that such laws even exist.

A "huge casualty of this war", he said, "is the belief within the Middle East that there is no international law".

Gaza scenario looming 
 

The Red Cross in Lebanon, where for the past month Israel has been launching ground invasion and dramatically escalating its air strikes, also condemned the slide.

Thirteen of its volunteers have been recently injured on ambulance missions.

One of its top officials, Samar Abou Jaoudeh, told AFP they did not appear to have been targeted directly.

"But nevertheless, not being able to reach the injured people, and (missiles) hitting right in front of an ambulance is also not respecting IHL," she said, stressing the urgent need to ensure more respect for international law on the ground.

Abou Jaoudeh feared Lebanon, where Israel killed at least 2,772 people since Oct. 8, 2023, while injuries increased to 12,468, according to the Lebanese health ministry, could suffer the same fate as Gaza. 

"We hope that no country would face anything that Gaza is facing now, but unfortunately a bit of that scenario is beginning to be similar in Lebanon," she said.

The Lebanese Red Cross, she said, was preparing "for all scenarios... but we just hope that it wouldn't reach this point".

* This story was edited by Ahram Online.