OPINION
The issue of corporate legal risk and complicity in the transport of materials knowingly used in the conduct of the Gaza war and emerging genocide should be at the forefront of responsible business considerations by shipping entities, shareholders and supporting third-parties.
The 7 October 2023 surpise attack by Hamas in which 1,195 Israelis and foreign nationals, including 815 civilians, were killed, and 251 taken hostage with the stated goal of forcing Israel to release Palestinian prisoners was ill-conceived in what is a historically complex and highly sensitive region of the world.
Nonetheless, at the time of writing, there is little doubt that continuing military activities being pursued by the current Israeli Government in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are now viewed as variously involving war crimes, with an ongoing genocide of the Gazan population and generational damage to the standing and reputation of the state.
The recent ITV News exposé of airborne recorded devastation of civilian areas from onboard a humanitarian military flight is undeniable evidence of man-made civilan infrastructure devastation and resultant societal collapse.
According to today's BBC reporting by Yolande Knell, "at least 61,020 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since then [7 0ct], the Hamas-run health ministry says".
Breaching International Law
But, even wars have rules.
The wholesale destruction of civilian infrastructure by Israeli military planners and the use of associated internationally supplied hardware undeniably exceeds that, which under International Humanitarian Law is humane, proportionate, shows distinction between civilian and military targets, and follows the principle of military necessity which prohibits superfluous injury and unnecessary suffering.
It breaches the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocols, humanitarian principles, and it will be basis for extensive historic lessons to be forensically dissected by military commanders, planners, politicians and civil society for decades to come.
It may well include war crimes investigations and prosecutions of persons from all sides complicit in this tragedy.
War Materials Shipped by Sea
The maintenance of any conflict relies on sustained logistical supply.
The Gaza war can not be conducted without steady access to materials, including re-supplies underpinning military operations. These invariably arrive by sea through the global maritime supply chain.
The immediate risk for shipping companies, shareholders and related commercial third-parties involved in the active transportation of materials into this warzone for profit, and with constructive knowledge of the evidenced resultant and continuing impact of extreme suffering by the civilian population; is the degree of their exposure and complicity.
In international armed conflict, the maritime supply chain with its Corporate Social Responsbility, ESG and regularly advocated corporate stance towards supporting human and environmental sustainability can not be avoided in respect of the the war in Gaza, or the related genocide.
Wrong Side of History
The Gaza war sharply brings into focus the necessity of extended mandatory and enhanced human rights due diligence by all sections of the maritime supply chain that must be consistently undertaken without excuse, exception, and without later corporate denial of being knowingly involved in a joint criminal enterprise.
International Humanitarian and Human Rights law and order has broken down in Gaza triggered by deliberate state actions and inherent human failings.
But, when the dust settles on this tragic conflict, and as highlighted in the report by Ms. Francesca Albanese, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967; the extent and arc of complicit actions and activities in the avoidable deaths and killing of so many civilians will more likely than not come back to haunt those same commercial shipping entities who chose to be on the wrong side of history, and put profit over people for the sake of market competition and shareholder return.
Read the UN Special Rapporteur's Country Report dated 16 June 2025.
ENDS.
Source: Human Rights at Sea, Public Reporting, Public online resources.
Certified Original. AI was not used in the drafting of this article.
Photo: Shutterstock (Representative images only)
Contact: If you have any questions, please write to us at enquiries@hrasi.org.
About Sharing. We welcome the use and dissemination of our copyrighted work with full, accurate and proper accreditation. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
©Copyright and Intellectual Property of Human Rights at Sea (HRAS) 2025. All rights reserved.