The UN’s highest court on Friday ordered Israel to “immediately” stop its military offensive in Rafah, a decision likely to add to international pressure for a truce after more than seven months of war.
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The International Court of Justice (ICJ), which sits in The Hague, also ordered Israel to keep the Rafah crossing open to allow “unrestricted” access to humanitarian aid.
The court also called for the immediate release of people taken hostage by Hamas during its October 7 attack on Israel.
The orders of the ICJ, which decides disputes between states, are legally binding, but it has no way of enforcing them.
Israel must “immediately stop its military offensive, and any other action carried out in the Rafah governorate, which would be likely to inflict on the group of Palestinians in Gaza conditions of existence capable of leading to its physical or partial destruction,” declared the courtyard.
Israel had affirmed before the ICJ that an imposed ceasefire would allow Hamas fighters to regroup, and would make it impossible to release hostages taken during the attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement on October 7.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he would bring together several ministers from his government about the ICJ decision, welcomed by Pretoria.
“This is a set of interim measures that are much firmer in their wording and a very clear call for a cessation of hostilities,” South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor told national broadcaster SABC .
The ICJ also ordered Israel to guarantee “unhindered access” to investigators mandated by the UN to investigate allegations of genocide.
The ICJ’s decision comes a few days after a historic request from the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Karim Khan has requested arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his defense minister and three Hamas leaders for alleged crimes committed in the Gaza Strip and Israel.
AFP
South Africa took the case to the ICJ in December, saying Israel’s Gaza offensive violated the 1948 UN Genocide Convention.
The court in January ordered Israel to do everything in its power to prevent any act of genocide and allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip.
But Pretoria repeatedly turned to the ICJ again, arguing that the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza required the court to take new emergency measures.
“Horrible level”
Pretoria declared last week before the ICJ that “the genocide” committed by Israel had reached a “horrible level”, referring in particular to mass graves, acts of torture and a blockage of humanitarian aid.
It will take months, if not years, for the court to rule on the merits of the case brought by Pretoria — which accuses Israel of “genocide” in Gaza — but it can order urgent measures in the meantime.
This affair is “completely disconnected” from reality and is a “caricature” of the United Nations Convention on Genocide which Israel is accused of having violated, Israel retorted.
AFP
“Calling something a genocide, over and over again, does not make it genocide. Repeating a lie does not make it true,” Gilad Noam, Israel’s deputy attorney general for international affairs, told the court.
Israel also said it was “extremely aware” of the suffering of civilians in the Gaza Strip and had made “considerable efforts” to increase humanitarian aid.
US President Joe Biden said this week that “what is happening is not genocide”.
War has raged between Israel and Hamas since an unprecedented attack launched on October 7, 2023 by commandos of the Palestinian Islamist movement infiltrated from the neighboring Gaza Strip in southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mainly civilians, according to an AFP report based on official Israeli data.
Of the 252 people taken as hostages on October 7, 121 are still being held in Gaza, including 37 dead, according to the army.
The vast offensive launched in response by Israel ravaged the Gaza Strip, where at least 35,800 people were killed, mostly civilians, according to data from the Ministry of Health of the government of the Palestinian territory led by Hamas.
