Israel releases nine of 32 Hamas legislators

The Israeli government today released nine of the 32 Hamas-affiliated legislators, elected in June 2006, whom it had been holding since June 2006.
International law completely prohibits the detention of any persons when they’re captured solely to be held as hostages. But the basic criminality of the action– in the case of the captured legislators or any of the other thousands of Palestinians held without charge or trial in Israel’s infamous detention camps– has never for some reason caused western government to stop giving aid and succor to Israel.
The fact that Israel’s capturing of duly elected legislators— along with the numerous other actions Israel took to punish the winners of the 2006 election and the people who had elected them– went completely unpunished by western governments that proclaim a commitment to “democracy” also revealed most of those governments to be complete and unashamed hypocrites when it comes to taking the side of any Israeli government, even when it significantly violates international law.
But now, the release of these nine legislators signals the possibility that this situation of deep illegality on behalf of Israel and its backers in the international community is starting to be unspooled?
Will the release of these legislators be followed by the release of all the other Palestinian legislators– from Hamas and other parties– who are held by Israel without charge or trial, and in often very abusive conditions?
Will it also be followed by concerted international action to lift the quite inhumane siege that Israel has maintained on Gaza for many years, which was tightened significantly after Hamas’s electoral victory and then once again after the failure of Israel’s assault against Gaza last December to topple Hamas from power?
Since Gaza is still, under international law, a territory that’s under Israeli military occupation, Israel has special responsibilities under IHL for the welfare of the Strip’s residents. The fact that it has not only failed to meet those rsponsibilities but has also maintained a very damaging and inhumane policy of collective punishment against the 1.5 million Gazans for the past 43 months is almost certainly a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions, that is, a war crime.
Certainly, all governments around the world that claim to uphold “the rule of law” should intervene vigorously to end Israel’s siege of Gaza. The aid convoys, very limited in capacity, that go to Gaza through Egypt or via the sea should be supported not only by a small number of plucky western activists and NGOs but by all governments that claim to support international law.
Does Israel’s release of these Hamas legislators– which may well have been carried out in response to pressure from western governments– signal that these governments are about to get tougher in their insistence on Israel’s compliance with international law in other ways, too?
I certainly hope so. The deliberately pursued suffocation and squeezing of Gaza by Israel, under the eyes of the watching world, has been a travesty of any concept of international “justice”. President Obama and his officials have “asked” Israel to lessen the conditions of the siege. Israel has done nothing to respond.
So what’s next?