IN the Middle East the air itself carries the weight of grief, fear and a quiet, exhausted anger.

Across the region, families wake each morning unsure of what the next hour will bring. The rules that were meant to protect human life, rules written after the world’s darkest wars, seem to be dissolving in real time. In their place, we are left with stories of shattered homes, broken classrooms and leaders assassinated in moments that reshape nations.

Among the most haunting reports are those emerging from Iran. The country’s Supreme Leader was assassinated in a US/Israeli strike and that more than 160 schoolgirls were killed when a school in the country’s south was bombed. The human reaction they provoke is immediate and universal. Every parent knows the terror of imagining their child’s empty seat at the dinner table. Every society understands the shock of losing its leaders to violence. These atrocities force us to confront the fragility of the protections we once believed were unbreakable.

These acts violate the clearest pillars of international law. Article 2(4) of the UN Charter prohibits force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, while Article 51 allows force only in response to an actual or imminent armed attack—not as a tool of political assassination. The targeted killing of a head of state breaches the prohibition on assassination and a strike on a school filled with children violates core principles of international humanitarian law, including the prohibition on disproportionate attacks and the special protection of children and educational institutions under the........

© Pakistan Observer