The World Court on Friday ordered Israel to do more to stop genocide against Palestinians and help civilians, but stopped short of ordering a cease-fire as requested by South African plaintiffs.
Although the ruling denied Palestinian hopes for a binding order to end the war in Gaza, it was also raised under the Genocide Convention, established in the ashes of the Holocaust of World War II. It represents a legal setback for Israel, which had hoped to have its lawsuit dismissed. Jews of Europe.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has found that there is a case to be heard regarding whether the rights of Palestinians are being denied in a war it says is causing serious humanitarian harm.
He also called on Palestinian militants to release hostages taken in the October 7 Israeli attack that sparked the conflict.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said the decision was a welcome reminder that “no state is above the law.”
Sami Abu Zuhri, a senior Hamas official, told Reuters it would help “isolate the occupation in Gaza and expose its crimes.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the ICJ's decision not to order a ceasefire, but rejected the genocide claims as “outrageous” and said Israel would continue to defend itself.
I'll report back in a month
When South Africa brought the case to the ICJ, also known as the World Court, this month, Israel argued that genocide is a very serious crime and that all states have a duty to prevent it. He had asked for the lawsuit to be dismissed.
Pretoria has accused Israel of committing state-sponsored genocide in an attack that began after Hamas terrorists stormed into Israel, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping more than 240.
The court asked the court to grant emergency measures to stop the fighting, but Palestinian officials said more than three months of intensive shelling had left more than 26,000 Palestinians dead and the population decimated. Most claim to have been evacuated.
The ICJ judges ordered Israel to take all possible steps to stop the military's genocide, punish acts of sedition, and improve the humanitarian situation, and to report on its progress within one month. I ordered him to take action.
The genocide allegation remains unresolved, and a decision could take years. The ruling cannot be appealed, but the court has no mechanism to enforce its decision.
In reading the judgment, ICJ President Justice Joan Donoghue described the plight of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, naming the harm to children and citing a detailed account of the humanitarian emergency by United Nations officials. .
This justified the court's decision to take emergency measures to prevent irreparable harm, she said. She also read out a call for a tough campaign from Israeli authorities, which she said justifies the court's order to Israel to punish those found guilty of sedition.
Israel said South Africa's claims were false and “grossly distorted.” Hamas has accused Hamas of acting among civilians, claiming they acted in self-defense against an enemy who attacked them first and went to great lengths to protect civilians, a charge denied by Hamas. are doing.
South Africa called the court order a “decisive victory” for the international rule of law, and South Africa and the European Union said Israel must fully implement the order immediately.
The United States notes that the judgment does not make a finding of genocide, consistent with the United States' view that Israel has the right to take action in accordance with international law to prevent a repeat of the October 7 attack. Then he said.
Assault on Khan Yunis
On the ground in Gaza, the heaviest fighting in recent weeks is currently taking place in an area crowded with hundreds of thousands of people who have fled previous fighting.
Palestinians sheltering in southern Gaza said they were disappointed that the court had not issued a cease-fire order, but said they hoped the ruling would hold them accountable.
“What happened is a victory,” said human rights activist Mustafa Ibrahim.
In Israel, Jonathan Dekel Chen, whose son is held hostage in Gaza, said he was encouraged by the ICJ's calls for the prisoners' release, citing the largely ignored Hamas attack that triggered the war. He said that it reflected the points that he had made.
Terrorists released a video on Friday featuring three female hostages calling for an end to the conflict. Israel claimed the videos amounted to psychological abuse.
Talks are accelerating over the release of hostages and Palestinians held by Israel and a possible pause in fighting to allow further aid to Gaza.
US President Joe Biden discussed the issue on Friday in a phone call with the emir of the mediating country, Qatar, and the White House said Washington looked forward to progress.
U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns and his Israeli counterpart met in Europe on Sunday with the Qatari prime minister and Egypt's spy chief, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters. They plan to discuss the possibility of a hostage transaction.
U.S. and Israeli intelligence chiefs previously met with Qatari and Egyptian officials and helped broker a short ceasefire in November that resulted in the release of more than 100 hostages.
The Biden administration is trying to expedite the release of the more than 100 remaining hostages.
Israel continued its shelling of the main southern city of Khan Yunis on Friday, reporting “heavy fighting” and air and ground attacks on Hamas fighters and infrastructure.
The latest operation revealed about 200 tunnel shafts and the destruction of more than 130 militant infrastructure facilities.
Residents said Israeli forces bombed buildings and homes in the western part of the city as gunfire escalated.
Palestinians claim that Israel is blocking rescue efforts for the dead and injured and blocking hospitals, which Israel denies and says Hamas terrorists are in close proximity to them. They are accused of being active.
Hezbollah announced late Friday that four of its fighters had been killed in an Israeli attack in southern Lebanon. The group has been in a firefight with Israel since October 8, when it fired rockets across Lebanon's southern border in support of its ally Hamas.
Israel's government said on Friday that it had fired rockets nine times a day at Israeli military targets, including the Burkan volcano, which was loaded with hundreds of kilograms of explosives.
In another setback for affected Palestinians, the US suspends funding to the United Nations Assistance Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) after Israel claimed 12 UNRWA staff were involved in the October 7 attack. Then he announced.
UNRWA said it was conducting an urgent investigation and that “UNRWA personnel involved in acts of terrorism” would be held accountable.
