[…] Two arguments are around attempting to justify the Israel-U.S. attacks. One is that Israel is in an ongoing armed conflict with Iran because of Iran’s support for armed militias or because of the tit-for-tat exchange of attacks months ago. These intermittent events, however, do not meet the definition of armed conflict in international law. An armed conflict is the intense exchange of fighting by two or more armed groups that lasts for a day or more. Even if these conditions were met in the past, within a reasonable period of their ending, so does the armed conflict. What counts as “reasonable” needs to be assessed in light of the presumption of peace. Indeed, any doubt about facts needs to be resolved in line with the prohibition of force. In the case of Israel and Iran months have passed since the last exchange of air attacks. Israel’s one-sided assassinations are not the sort of violence that constitutes armed conflict in the first place. Intermittent attacks by armed militias in the region need to pass a further test of being attributable to Iran but even passing that test, terrorism – like assassination – is a one-sided act of violence, not an exchange. Terrorism is properly classified as crime, not armed conflict.
There is an even less persuasive variation on the on-going armed conflict argument. It holds that Israel has been in an armed conflict since its founding with any state that has attacked it until a peace treaty is agreed. Again, this argument does not meet the international law test of what constitutes an armed conflict. Läs artikel