Professor Michael Bryant is the author of A World History of War Crimes: From Antiquity to the Present.
In retaliation to over a thousand Israeli dead, the country’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, has vowed to besiege Gaza. In a statement earlier this week, he said: ‘We are putting a complete siege on Gaza… No electricity, no food, no water, no gas – it’s all closed.’ Israel has been as good as its word, even stopping
The waging of war has never been a pure free-for-all. Every culture has had a sense of limits: when war could be legitimately declared and how it would be legitimately waged. For ancient civilisations, war was a means of preserving the cosmic order. The ancient Egyptians believed their wars had to be sanctioned by the
