Gaza: Military Intervention is The Last Resort

Life in Gaza in disarray because of ceaseless Israeli military action. JUST

By Chandra Muzaffar

The International Movement for a Just World (JUST) supports wholeheartedly the sincere and principled call of the president of Ireland, Michael D Higgins, to the UN to intervene militarily to save the people of Gaza from starvation and death. He has asked the world body to invoke chapter 7 of its Charter which allows the UN Security Council to take binding measures including the use of force to protect a people from annihilation and extermination at the hands of an aggressor that is utterly contemptuous of international law and civilised norms of behaviour. In spite of UN General Assembly resolutions urging restraint and pleas from nations and communities to stop its brutal bombardment of helpless people, and harsh restrictions on the distribution of food and medicines to them, Israel has been relentless in its pursuit of the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. The military intervention proposed by the Irish president is in effect the last resort.

One hopes that other nations including the 30 odd countries that condemned Israel for using starvation as a weapon of war on the 21st of July 2025 and the 9 states that constitute the Hague Group which has pledged to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine and has endorsed the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self determination will also come forward and support military intervention on the part of the UN. My own country, Malaysia, which is a member of the Hague Group should also respond to the Irish call.

Since Security Council approval of military intervention is a prerequisite for UN action, the people of the world who are appalled by the genocide in Gaza over the last 22 months, hope the United States will not use its veto to prevent the Security Council from acting as the conscience of humanity. Even if it does not want to vote for intervention, it should at least abstain.

Dr Chandra Muzaffar,

President,

International Movement for a Just World (JUST)

Malaysia. 9th August 2025.