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Israel must take steps to prevent genocide in Gaza, ICJ says in ruling on temporary measures

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South Africa has accused Israel of “chilling” and “incontrovertible” intent to commit genocide in Gaza on the opening day of a landmark case before the UN’s top court at The Hague.

Calling on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to order Israel to cease military operations in Gaza, lawyers for South Africa, said that Israel has gone beyond its intention to eradicate Hamas and is aiming to bring about the "the destruction” of the besieged territory’s population. Isreael was accused of breaching the UN Genocide Convention, with lawyers saying that even the 7 October attack by Hamas into Israel – during which around 1,200 people were killed and another 240 taken hostage – could not justify such actions.

South Africa’s justice minister, Ronald Lamola, opened Thursday’s session claiming that Israel has “crossed the line” with its bombardment of Gaza, with health officials in the Hamas-run territory putting the death toll at more than 23,000 people.

"The intent to destroy Gaza has been nurtured at the highest level of state," Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, advocate of the High Court of South Africa, told the court. "The evidence of genocidal intent is not only chilling, it is also overwhelming and incontrovertible," Mr Ngcukaitobi said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vehemently denied the allegations, saying that Israel is “fighting murderous terrorists who carried out crimes against humanity.”

"The hypocrisy of South Africa screams to the heavens," Mr Netanyahu added in a statement after the first hearing. Israel will offer its defence on Friday, but has repeatedly said it is doing its upmost to avoid cilivian casualities.

The case hits at the centre of Israel’s creation as a Jewish state in the aftermath of the Nazi Holocaust, which killed six million Jews. Enacted in the wake of that mass murder the UN Genocide Convention of 1948 defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.

Israel has blamed Hamas for using civilians as human shields, but lawyers for South Africa told the court that Israel’s military response have gone beyond what is reasonable. “This killing is nothing short of destruction of Palestinian life,” said Adila Hassim, a South African lawyer and member of the delegation, said. “It is inflicted deliberately. No one is spared. Not even newborn babies.”

Post-apartheid South Africa has long defended the Palestinian cause, a relationship forged when the African National Congress' struggle against white-minority rule was backed by Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organisation. The intervention by South Africa, a state not involved in the war in Gaza, is extremely rare. But there is precedent – the Gambia took Myanmar to the ICJ in 2019 accusing it of genocide against the Rohingya.

Although the court's findings are considered binding on parties to the court, including both South Africa and Israel, the court has no way to enforce them. In 2022, the court ordered Russia to "immediately suspend military operations" in Ukraine following the invasion by Moscow, but that order was ignored. it was unclear whether Israel would heed any order to halt the fighting. If it doesn't, it could face UN sanctions, although those may be blocked by veto from Israel’s staunchest ally, the US.

The court is expected to rule on possible emergency measures to halt Israel’s military activities in Gaza later this month but will not rule at that time on the genocide allegations. Those proceedings could take years.

Joshua Krasna, an former diplomat for Israel, told The Independent that to many Israelis, the trial was “a clear example of a double standard”.

“The gap between how Israel truly sees itself in this conflict, and how it is viewed by much of the international community, is almost incomprehensible to Israelis,” he said.

In a sign of the tense atmosphere in which the case is being heard, competing demonstrations took place outside the court, with chanting occasionally able to be heard from inside the courtroom. Hundreds of pro-Israeli protesters marched close to the courthouse with banners saying "Bring them home," referring to the hostages still being held by Hamas.

At a separate demonstration, pro-Palestinians protesters gathered, some waving flags calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. "What I hope is that they [the court] can achieve what has not been able to achieve until now, which is a permanent ceasefire, a safety corridor for humanitarian help so that the death toll doesn't go up even further," said Sara Galli, who took part in the demonstration.

Israel will be back on the International Court of Justice’s docket next month, when hearings open into a UN request for an advisory opinion on the legality of Israeli policies in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem.


Source: The Independent
 
According to Media sources:

Just a month after its 75th anniversary, the genocide convention could be entering a new age of greater relevance as the international court of justice convenes in The Hague to consider the Israel-Gaza war.

South Africa has brought a case to the ICJ accusing Israel of committing genocide in its military response to the 7 October Hamas attack that killed hundreds of Israeli civilians. The South African case includes references to the Israeli use of blanket bombing and the cutting of food, water and medicine supplies to Gaza.

“The acts are all attributable to Israel, which has failed to prevent genocide and is committing genocide in manifest violation of the genocide convention,” the case states.

Israel has signalled its determination to rebuff the charges, which Tel Aviv and Washington have rejected as baseless. It could take the court years to make a ruling, but it could also issue “provisional measures” requiring actions, like a ceasefire, to mitigate the risk of genocide.

The Israeli government could ignore the measures, but to do so would cause enormous reputational harm and loss of influence on the world stage for Israel and its principal backer, the US.

The intervention by South Africa, a state not involved in or directly harmed by the war in Gaza, is extremely rare, but it is not the first. The precedent was created by the Gambia, when it took Myanmar to the ICJ in 2019 accusing it of genocide against the Rohingya.

In 2021 the court imposed provisional measures on Myanmar, requiring the junta to direct its forces not to commit genocide, and to preserve all relevant evidence. The next year, the ICJ panel of judges decided by 15 votes to one (the Chinese judge was the lone dissenter) that the Gambia had the right to bring the case under an erga omnes obligation laid down by the genocide convention, meaning that it is the duty of an individual state towards the international community as a whole.

Savita Pawnday, the executive director at the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, an NGO, said: “[the] Gambia taking Myanmar to the ICJ for its violations under the obligations of the genocide convention opened the gate for what is happening now with South Africa taking Israel to court. I think that is a fantastic step in addressing the climate of impunity that has operated for decades.”

Before the Gambian precedent, the ICJ had rarely considered genocide issues. In 2007, the court ruled that Serbia had failed to prevent the 1995 genocide at Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a case of a victim taking an alleged perpetrator to court, but it has never yet held a state responsible for the commission of genocide. A case brought by Ukraine against Russia in February 2022 continues.

Genocide convictions have been passed down by other courts, like The Hague war crimes tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, and the international criminal court has jurisdiction in genocide cases, but those courts pursue trials of individuals and after the fact, when the dead are already buried.

The ICJ rules on state responsibility and can take steps to prevent genocide. Prevention was certainly the aspiration in 1948 behind the convention when the UN general assembly adopted it in Paris, in the aftermath of the second world war and the Holocaust.

Arguably more than any other international convention, it was the work of one person, Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jewish lawyer who had sought refuge from the Nazis in the US. In 1944, Lemkin coined the term “genocide” for what Winston Churchill had called a “crime without a name”, and spent the immediate postwar years on a one-man lobbying campaign in the newly formed United Nations.

However, that personal victory was tainted by his failure to convince the US Congress to ratify the convention. The Senate refused even to hear him speak, and raised objections that such a law could leave the US vulnerable to prosecutions for the destruction of the Native Americans and for segregation.

Lemkin died in 1959, impoverished and almost forgotten. Seven people came to his funeral. He ended his life in disappointment as he had seen ratification as vital for the convention to take flight. In his view, only the US had the power and international standing to enforce the convention and make it a global norm.

The Senate did not ratify until 1988, and it took a major gaffe to make it happen. Three years earlier, Ronald Reagan had attended a ceremony at a cemetery in Bitburg, Germany, only discovering later that 49 members of the Waffen-SS were buried there.

Reagan had previously been uninterested in pushing ratification of the genocide convention, but the White House hurriedly reversed course in an effort to regain trust from Jewish Americans. A government lawyer who had written a paper advocating ratification, Harold Koh, got an urgent call.

“Suddenly, I was told to bring our advice about the genocide convention to the White House so that they could bring it out that day,” Koh said. “I drove up in my car and this guy in a military uniform came out and grabbed it from me and I said to myself: why is this guy wearing a military uniform if he’s in the NSC [national security council]?”

The man in uniform was Col Oliver North, who would later be convicted for felonies related to the Iran-Contra scandal linking the White House to human rights abusers in both Nicaragua and Iran, making North an embodiment of the risk of hypocrisy facing any state seeking to wield international humanitarian law against another.

When the Senate did ratify the convention, it also made genocide a crime under US law, but it blocked the route to the ICJ. It loaded the ratification with caveats that stipulated the US could not be taken to court without its government’s consent. By the principle of reciprocity, any state it took to the court could claim the same protection.

David Scheffer, who was the first US ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues, said: “Other countries are forging ahead with the genocide convention so I don’t think the US posture with its reservation to be too damaging. It is just unfortunate as we need to be able to use and participate in the genocide convention as a powerful tool of law enforcement.”

Like the US, other big powers have been reluctant to take other states to the ICJ for fear of being pursued in the court themselves or facing accusations of hypocrisy.

In 1994, Human Rights Watch tried to persuade governments to take Iraq to court for the mass killings of Kurds, but the capitals it approached wanted a European power to take the lead, and no European state was willing.

That deadlock has now been broken by the Gambia and South Africa deciding to take the initiative. Even if the ICJ does pass down provisional measures, it is more than probable that Israel will ignore them, but Kate Ferguson, the co-founder of the human rights advocacy group Protection Approaches, argues the effort would still not be in vain.

“Will it be enough to stem the tide of atrocity crimes? No, of course not,” she said. “But if more states can stand up and fulfil their state obligations under the convention, that can only be a good thing.”
 
Israel rejects genocide charges, tells World Court it must defend itself

Israel on Friday rejected as false and "grossly distorted" accusations brought by South Africa at the U.N.'s top court that its military operation in Gaza is a state-led genocide campaign against the Palestinian population.

Arguing it was acting to defend itself and was fighting Hamas, not the Palestinian population, Israel called on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to dismiss the case as groundless and reject South Africa's request to halt the offensive.

"This is no genocide," lawyer Malcolm Shaw said.

Israel launched its war in Gaza after a cross-border rampage on Oct. 7 by militants from Hamas, which is sworn to Israel's destruction. Israeli officials said 1,200 people were killed, mainly civilians, and 240 taken hostage.

"The appalling suffering of civilians, both Israeli and Palestinian, is first and foremost the result of Hamas' strategy," the Israeli foreign ministry's legal adviser, Tal Becker told the court.

"If there were acts of genocide, they have been perpetrated against Israel," Becker said. "Hamas seeks genocide against Israel," he added.

South Africa asked the court on Thursday to impose emergency measures ordering Israel to immediately halt the offensive.

It said Israel's aerial and ground offensive - which has laid waste to much of the enclave and killed almost 24,000 people, according to Gaza health authorities - aimed to bring about "the destruction of the population" of Gaza.

Israel rejected the accusations, saying it respected international law and had a right to defend itself.

"When the cannons roar in Gaza the law is not silent," Deputy Attorney General Gilad Noam told the court.

The 1948 Genocide Convention, enacted in the wake of the mass murder of Jews in the Nazi Holocaust, defines genocide as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group".

Israel, its defence team argued, was doing what it could to alleviate the humanitarian suffering in Gaza, including efforts to urge Palestinians to evacuate.

The court is expected to rule on possible emergency measures later this month but will not rule at that time on the genocide accusations. Those proceedings could take years. The ICJ's decisions are final and without appeal, but the court has no way to enforce them.

Palestinian backers with flags marched through The Hague and watched proceedings on a giant screen in front of the Peace Palace. As the Israeli delegation spoke in court, they chanted: "Liar! Liar!"

Asked what she thought of Israel's arguments that the Gaza campaign was a matter of self-defence, Neen Haijjawi, a Palestinian who recently came to Netherlands said: "How can an occupier that's been oppressing people for 75 years say it's self-defence?"

Israeli supporters were holding a separate gathering of family members of hostages taken by Hamas.

Israel has said South Africa is acting as a mouthpiece for Islamist Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist group by the United States, the European Union, Britain and several other nations. South Africa has rejected that accusation.

Since Israeli forces started their offensive, nearly all of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes at least once, leading to a humanitarian catastrophe.

Post-apartheid South Africa has long advocated the Palestinian cause, a relationship forged when the African National Congress' struggle against white-minority rule was supported by Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organisation.

"My grandfather always regarded the Palestinian struggle as the greatest moral issue of our time," Mandla Mandela, a grandson of the late South Africa president Nelson Mandela, said at a rally in support of the Palestinians in Cape Town.

Source: Reuters

 
Hats off to South Africa for questioning Israel about the genocide in Gaza at the international level by taking the case to the International Court. South Africa has done what other Muslim countries might have done.
 
South Africa accused Israel on Thursday of carrying out genocide in Gaza and demanded that the UN’s top court order an emergency suspension of Israel’s devastating military campaign in the Palestinian enclave.

On the first of two days of hearings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), also known as the World Court, South Africa said Israel’s attack on Gaza, which has demolished much of the coastal enclave and killed more than 23,000 people, aimed to bring about “the destruction of the (territory’s) population”.

“The intent to destroy Gaza has been nurtured at the highest level of state,” Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, advocate of the High Court of South Africa, told the court. He said Israel’s political and military leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, were among “the genocidal inciters”.

“That is evident from the way in which this military attack is being conducted,” he said.

Israel rejected the accusations of genocide as false and baseless and said South Africa was speaking on behalf of Hamas — which Pretoria said was untrue. Netanyahu said the court had been presented with “hypocrisy and lies”.

“Today we saw an upside-down world. Israel is accused of genocide while it is fighting against genocide,” he said in a statement.

“Israel is fighting murderous terrorists who carried out crimes against humanity: they slaughtered, they raped, they burned, they dismembered, they beheaded — children, women, elderly, young men and women,” he said.

Laying out its allegations of genocidal acts, South Africa pointed to Israel’s sustained bombing campaign and to comments by Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who said days after the Oct 7 Hamas raid that Israel would impose a total blockade as part of a battle against “human animals”.

“The evidence of genocidal intent is not only chilling, it is also overwhelming and incontrovertible,” Ngcukaitobi said.

The 1948 Genocide Convention, enacted in the wake of the Holocaust, defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”.

Emergency ruling

Since Israeli forces launched their attack, nearly all of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, one of the world’s most densely populated places, have been driven from their homes at least once, causing a humanitarian catastrophe.

“Every day, there is mounting, irreparable loss of life, property, dignity, and humanity for the Palestinian people,” said Adila Hassim, advocate of South Africa’s high court.

Post-apartheid South Africa has long defended the Palestinian cause, a relationship forged when the African National Congress’s struggle against white-minority rule was cheered on by Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organisation.

South Africa concluded its arguments by requesting emergency measures to stop the Israeli bombardment of Gaza. The ICJ’s decisions are final and without appeal, but it has no way to enforce them.

In its court filings, South Africa cited Israel’s failure to provide food, water, medicine and other essential assistance to Gaza.

In Gaza, Amer Salah, 23, who is sheltering in a UN school in the south after fleeing his home, said he hoped the trial would help pile pressure on Israel.

“We call upon the world to say enough to Israeli killings, enough to massacres, enough to the destruction of Gaza, enough to the bloodshed,” he said. Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said the group was following the court proceedings with great interest.

Source : Dawn News
 
Corbyn pushes South African genocide case against Israel at The Hague

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has joined the South African government at The Hague in pushing its case accusing Israel of genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza.

Mr Corbyn is standing in support of South Africa at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for the hearings – arguing that the country’s case was “very strong”.

Speaking after the first day’s hearing in the Netherlands court, Mr Corbyn said the South African delegation’s presentation was “brilliantly prepared and brilliantly put forward”.

Mr Corbyn told Al-Jazeera that the South Africans had argued that Israel was “in breach of the convention on genocide” and had embarked on “collective punishment of the people of Gaza”.

He said: “Nobody can call the killing of all these thousands of people and destruction of 70 per cent of all the housing in Gaza a proportionate response – it is an attack on the entire Palestinian population.”

The ex-Labour leader said he hoped the case at the Hague would make an “incremental difference” in winning international support for Gaza.

He added: “If we just walk by on the other and ignore what is happening to the Palestinian people then we become complicit … Is the world going to do nothing about it but continue to supply arms to Israel? Or say this has got to stop?”

The South African delegation has said that “senior political figures from progressive political parties and movements across the globe” – including Mr Corbyn – were supporting its case.

But the left-wing former Labour leader was the only foreign political figure named in the country’s statement on the case. South African minister of justice Ronald Lamola said the country was “encouraged by leaders of the world who have not blunted their consciousness”.

Earlier this week, Mr Corbyn stood in the Commons called on Rishi Sunak’s government to at least “support South Africa’s process”.

He told MPs that “many people are very pleased that the government of South Africa has taken an initiative … in order to hold Israel to account for the deaths of so many wholly innocent people in Gaza”.

In November, Mr Corbyn finally described Hamas as a “terrorist group” after repeatedly avoiding the term – as he wrote an article accusing the Israeli army of being guilty of “acts of terror too”.

Mr Corbyn remains a Labour member, but sits as an independent MP after he was suspended over his failure to offer an appropriate response to the damning report on antisemitism in the party under his leadership.

The ex-leader has strongly suggested he would run against Labour as an independent at the general election – saying he had “no intention of stopping” representing Islington North.

The two-day case at The Hague continues on Friday. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has that South Africa’s genocide case against Israel in Gaza amounted to “hypocrisy and lies”. And Israel’s president Isaac Herzog called the ICJ case “atrocious and preposterous”.

At a press conference with US secretary of state Antony Blinken this week, Mr Herzog said: “Actually, our enemies, Hamas, in their charter, call for the destruction of our nation, the State of Israel – the only nation-state of the Jewish people.”

Foreign secretary David Cameron has said earlier this week that he is “worried” that Israel may have acted in breach of international law in the Middle East conflict.

Lord Cameron said that he “of course” has concerns about the crisis in Gaza but that it is not his job to make a “legal adjudication”.​

SOURCE: The Independent
 
Trudeau says Canada supports the UN court but not necessarily genocide claim against Israel

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says his government's support for the International Court of Justice as a key institution of international law does not mean it backs the premise of the genocide claim brought by South Africa against Israel.

The Liberal government has faced days of questions about where Canada stands on South Africa's case before the top United Nations court.

"Canada has long been a tremendous supporter of the international rules-based order and processes and structures that have been put in place over the past decades to be able to actually ensure that international law is respected and enforced," Trudeau told a press conference Friday in Guelph, Ont.

"And the ICJ, International Court of Justice, is a key part of that. Our wholehearted support of the ICJ and its processes does not mean we support the premise of the case brought forward by South Africa."

In a statement released Friday afternoon, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly echoed Trudeau's remarks and said Canada will watch the case before the ICJ very closely.

"Under the UN's 1948 Genocide Convention, the crime of genocide requires the intention to destroy or partly destroy a group because of their nationality, ethnicity, race or religion. Meeting this high threshold requires compelling evidence," said Joly.

"We must ensure that the procedural steps in this case are not used to foster antisemitism and targeting of Jewish neighbourhoods, businesses and individuals. At the same time, we will continue to stand against Islamophobia and anti-Arab sentiment."

In the statement, Joly went on to say that Canada remains deeply concerned about the scale of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and supports urgent international efforts to secure a sustainable ceasefire.

"This cannot be one-sided. Hamas must release all hostages, stop using Palestinian civilians as human shields and lay down its arms," she said.

South Africa launched proceedings against Israel at the ICJ in December accusing the Israeli government of perpetrating a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

South Africa accuses the Israeli government of engaging in "genocidal acts" against Gazans, including "killing them, causing them serious mental and bodily harm and deliberately inflicting on them conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction as a group."

Hamas carried out an attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing an estimated 1,200 Israelis and taking more than 200 people hostage. Israel declared war on Hamas in response, unleashing months of heavy air bombardments and a full-scale invasion of Gaza. The Hamas-run health authority says more than 23,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 58,000 Palestinians have been injured in Gaza since the start of the war.

The UN's genocide convention codified in international law for the first time the crime of genocide; it became the first human rights treaty adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948. It was intended to signal the international community's commitment to preventing a repeat of the atrocities of the Second World War, including the Holocaust.

Israel rejects South Africa's allegations as "grossly distorted" and is calling on the ICJ judges to dismiss South Africa's call for Israel to halt its military operation in Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned South Africa's allegations as "hypocrisy and lies" this week.

"Israel is accused of genocide while it is fighting against genocide," said Netanyahu, citing Hamas's stated intent to destroy Israel.

Hamas's founding document, The Covenant of Islamic Resistance Movement, states that "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it."

The 1988 document also explicitly rejects peace negotiations and processes to settle Jewish and Palestinian land claims. "There is no solution to the Palestinian question except through Jihad," the document states.

In November, Ghazi Hamad, a senior member of Hamas's political bureau, reportedly said in an interview with a Lebanese TV channel that Hamas aims to repeat the Oct. 7 attack many times in an effort to annihilate Israel.

Hamas is a listed terrorist organization in Canada.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre dismissed South Africa's genocide allegations against Israel, calling them a shameless and dishonest attack on Jewish people and the Jewish state.

"I find it incredible these countries have not accused Hamas of genocide when it's in Hamas's charter that they want to commit genocide against Israel. We don't even need to accuse Hamas because they admit they are a genocidal enterprise. They admit that their October 7 attacks were motivated by genocidal aims," Poilievre told reporters Friday at a press conference in Winnipeg.

"If we want to go after genocide targeting Muslims, why are they not bringing a case against China for its persecution of the Uyghur Muslims who are in concentration camps in that country? Why are they not going after [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad, who has been carrying out a genocide against Sunni Muslims in that country?"

It could be years before the ICJ issues a final ruling on the genocide claim.
​
 
Israel rejects genocide charges, tells World Court it must defend itself

THE HAGUE, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Israel on Friday rejected as false and "grossly distorted" accusations brought by South Africa at the U.N.'s top court that its military operation in Gaza is a state-led genocide campaign against Palestinians.

Arguing it was acting to defend itself and was fighting Hamas, not the Palestinian population, Israel called on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to dismiss the case as groundless and reject South Africa's request to order it to halt the offensive.

"This is no genocide," lawyer Malcolm Shaw said.

South Africa told the court on Thursday that Israel's aerial and ground offensive - which has laid waste to much of the enclave and killed almost 24,000 people, according to Gaza health authorities - aimed to bring about "the destruction of the population" of Gaza.

Israel rejected the accusations, saying it respected international law and had a right to defend itself.

Israel launched its war in Gaza after a cross-border rampage on Oct. 7 by militants from Hamas, which is sworn to Israel's destruction. Israeli officials said 1,200 people were killed, mainly civilians, and 240 taken hostage.

"The appalling suffering of civilians, both Israeli and Palestinian, is first and foremost the result of Hamas' strategy," the Israeli foreign ministry's legal adviser, Tal Becker told the court.

"If there were acts of genocide, they have been perpetrated against Israel," Becker said. "Hamas seeks genocide against Israel."

The 1948 Genocide Convention, enacted in the wake of the mass murder of Jews in the Nazi Holocaust, defines genocide as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group".

Israel, its defence team argued, was doing what it could to alleviate the humanitarian suffering in Gaza, including efforts to urge Palestinians to evacuate.

The court is expected to rule later this month on possible emergency measures - including South Africa's request that it orders Israel to halt its offensive.

It will not rule at that time on the genocide accusations. Those proceedings could take years.

The ICJ's decisions are final and without appeal, but the court has no way to enforce them.

Palestinian backers with flags marched through The Hague and watched proceedings on a giant screen in front of the Peace Palace. As the Israeli delegation spoke in court, they chanted: "Liar! Liar!"

Asked what she thought of Israel's arguments that the Gaza campaign was a matter of self-defence, Neen Haijjawi, a Palestinian who recently came to Netherlands said: "How can an occupier that's been oppressing people for 75 years say it's self-defence?"

Israeli supporters were holding a separate gathering of family members of hostages taken by Hamas.

Israel has said South Africa is acting as a mouthpiece for Islamist Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist group by the United States, the European Union, Britain and several other nations. South Africa has rejected that accusation.

Since Israeli forces started their offensive, nearly all of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes at least once, leading to a humanitarian catastrophe.

Post-apartheid South Africa has long advocated the Palestinian cause, a relationship forged when the African National Congress' struggle against white-minority rule was supported by Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organisation.

"My grandfather always regarded the Palestinian struggle as the greatest moral issue of our time," Mandla Mandela, a grandson of the late South Africa president Nelson Mandela, said at a rally in support of the Palestinians in Cape Town.
​
SOURCE: REUTERS
 
A defiant Netanyahu says no one can halt Israel’s war to crush Hamas, including the world court

Israel will pursue its war against Hamas until victory and will not be stopped by anyone, including the world court, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a defiant speech Saturday, as the fighting in Gaza approached the 100-day mark.

Netanyahu spoke after the International Court of Justice at The Hague held two days of hearings on South Africa’s allegations that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians, a charge Israel has rejected as libelous and hypocritical. South Africa asked the court to order Israel to halt its blistering air and ground offensive in an interim step.

“No one will stop us, not The Hague, not the axis of evil and not anyone else,” Netanyahu said in televised remarks Saturday evening, referring to Iran and its allied militias.

The case before the world court is expected to go on for years, but a ruling on interim steps could come within weeks. Court rulings are binding but difficult to enforce. Netanyahu made clear that Israel would ignore orders to halt the fighting, potentially deepening its isolation.

Israel has been under growing international pressure to end the war, which has killed more than 23,000 Palestinians in Gaza and led to widespread suffering in the besieged enclave, but has so far been shielded by U.S. diplomatic and military support.

Israel argues that ending the war means victory for Hamas, the Islamic militant group that has ruled Gaza since 2007 and is bent on Israel’s destruction.

The war was triggered by a deadly Oct. 7 attack in which Hamas and other militants killed some 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians. About 250 more were taken hostage, and while some have been released or confirmed dead, more than half are believed to still be in captivity. Sunday marks 100 days of fighting.

Fears of a wider conflagration have been palpable since the start of the war. New fronts quickly opened, with Iran-backed groups — Houthi rebels in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria — carrying out a range of attacks. From the start, the U.S. increased its military presence in the region to deter an escalation.

Following a Houthi campaign of drone and missile attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea, the U.S. and Britain launched multiple airstrikes against the rebels Friday, and the U.S. hit another site Saturday.

In more fallout from the war, the world court this week heard arguments on South Africa’s complaint against Israel. South Africa cited the soaring death toll and hardships among Gaza civilians, along with inflammatory comments from Israeli leaders presented, as proof of what it called genocidal intent.

In counter arguments Friday, Israel asked for the case to be dismissed as meritless. Israel’s defense argued that the country has the right to fight back against a ruthless enemy, that South Africa had barely mentioned Hamas, and that it ignored what Israel considers attempts to mitigate civilian harm.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu and his army chief, Herzl Halevi, said they have no immediate plans to allow the return of displaced Palestinians to northern Gaza, the initial focus of Israel’s offensive. Fighting in the northern half has been scaled back, with forces now focusing on the southern city of Khan Younis, though combat continues in parts of the north.

Netanyahu said the issue had been raised by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken during his visit earlier this week. The Israeli leader said he told Blinken that “we will not return residents (to their homes) when there is fighting.”

At the same time, Netanyahu said Israel would eventually need to close what he said were breaches along Gaza’s border with Egypt. Over the years of an Israeli-Egyptian blockade, smuggling tunnels under Egypt-Gaza border had constituted a major supply line for Gaza.

However, the border area, particularly the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, is packed with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who had fled northern Gaza, and their presence would complicate any plans to widen Israel’s ground offensive.

“We will not end the war until we close this breach,” Netanyahu said Saturday, adding that the government has not yet decided how to do that.

In Gaza, where Hamas has put up stiff resistance to Israel’s blistering air and ground campaign, the war continued unabated.

The Gaza Health Ministry said Saturday that 135 Palestinians had been killed in the last 24 hours, bringing the overall toll of the war to 23,843. The count does not differentiate between combatants and civilians, but the ministry has said about two-thirds of the dead are women and children. The ministry said the total number of war-wounded surpassed 60,000.

Following an Israeli airstrike before dawn Saturday, video provided by Gaza’s Civil Defense department showed rescue workers searching through the twisted rubble of a building in Gaza City by flashlight.

Footage showed them carrying a young girl wrapped in blankets with injuries to her face, and at least two other children who appeared dead. A boy, covered in dust, winced as he was loaded into an ambulance.

The attack on the home in the Daraj neighborhood killed at least 20 people, according to Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal.

Another strike late Friday near the southern city of Rafah on the Egyptian border killed at least 13 people, including two children. The bodies of those killed, primarily from a family displaced from central Gaza, were taken to the city’s Abu Youssef al-Najjar hospital where they were seen by an Associated Press reporter.

The Palestinian telecommunications company Jawwal said two of its employees were killed Saturday as they tried to repair the network in Khan Younis. They company said the two were hit by shelling. Jawwal said it has lost 13 employees since the start of the war.

Israel has argued that Hamas is responsible for the high civilian casualties, saying its fighters make use of civilian buildings and launch attacks from densely populated urban areas.

The Israeli military released a video Saturday that it said showed the destruction of two ready-to-use rocket launching compounds in Al-Muharraqa in central Gaza. A large grove of palm trees and some homes are seen in the frame. In the video, a rocket is being thrown into the air by the blast. The military said there had been dozens of launchers ready to be used.

Since the start of Israel’s ground operation in late October, 187 Israeli soldiers have been killed and another 1,099 injured in Gaza, according to the military.

More than 85% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has been displaced as a result of Israel’s air and ground offensive, and vast swaths of the territory have been leveled.

Only 15 of the territory’s 36 hospitals are still partially functional, according to OCHA, the United Nations’ humanitarian affairs agency.

Amid already severe shortages of food, clean water and fuel in Gaza, OCHA said in its daily report that Israel’s severe constraints on humanitarian missions and outright denials had increased since the start of the year.

The agency said only 21% of planned deliveries of food, medicine, water and other supplies have been successfully reaching northern Gaza.
​
SOURCE: AP NEWS
 
Bangladesh backs South Africa’s genocide claims against Israel

Bangladesh’s Foreign Ministry on Sunday voiced support for genocide claims against Israel amid the war against Hamas, joining others backing a controversial South African application at the Hague.

The Sunday statement from Dhaka, asserting that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians and must immediately suspend all military operations, came days after the International Court of Justice held hearings that could lead to it ordering the Israel Defense Forces to suspend its campaign against the Hamas terror group.

Bangladesh, which does not recognize Israel, claimed that the IDF’s campaign in Gaza has resulted in the deaths of “thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians, the majority of whom are women and children.”

Dhaka also accused Israel of violating the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide and concluded its statement with a call to end “Israel’s occupation of Palestine” and restore pre-1967 borders.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to any of Bangladesh’s claims.

South Africa’s allegations of genocide at The Hague were largely based on the assertion that inflammatory comments by senior Israeli cabinet ministers with a say over war policy demonstrate an intent to kill civilians.

Israel on Friday refuted the claims before the ICJ, asserting that the body has no jurisdiction over the complaints since they relate to the laws of armed conflict, not genocide. The Jewish state’s six legal representatives also insisted that the widespread harm to Palestinian civilians during the war was a result of Hamas’s massive use of civilian infrastructure for military purposes and not genocidal acts.

Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, and the dozens of Muslim nations comprising the Organization of Islamic Countries and the Arab League have all issued messages of support for South Africa, while a small number of powerful allies, including the US, UK and Canada, have rallied behind Israel.

On Friday, Germany said it would seek to intervene in the proceedings on Israel’s behalf, saying there was “no basis whatsoever” for an accusation of genocide against Israel.

South Africa’s case is “completely unjustified and wrong,” British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said, according to a spokesperson quoted by BBC news on Friday.

In addition to being one of the 28 UN member states that do not recognize the State of Israel, Bangladesh is one of a handful of countries that do not allow its citizens to travel to Israel and do not accept Israeli passports at their border.

In 2014, Bangladeshi journalist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury was sentenced to seven years in prison for criticizing the government and for trying to visit Israel over a decade before, even though he was arrested in 2003 before he could board his flight to Tel Aviv.

Despite having no diplomatic relations with Israel and overt travel and trade prohibitions, Dhaka has reportedly shown interest in Israeli-made spyware over the last decade.

Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported last year that privately developed Israeli surveillance equipment was sold to the Bangladeshi government in 2022.

In 2021, the newspaper published a similar report claiming Israeli-owned intelligence firm Cellbrite sold surveillance technology to the Rapid Action Battalion.

The South Asian country has been rocked by political unrest in recent years, with the US issuing sanctions against its elite police unit, the Rapid Action Battalion, for alleged human rights abuses, and UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk charging that recent elections were “marred by violence and repression of opposition candidates and supporters.”

Bangladesh’s Foreign Ministry refuted the UN chief’s claims in a January 8 press release, less than one week before issuing its support for South Africa’s claims of Israeli genocide.

The ICJ is expected to rule on possible emergency measures for the Israeli military later this month, but will not rule at that time on the genocide allegations — those proceedings could take years.

The court’s decisions are final and without appeal. The court has no way to enforce them, but ignoring them could have significant international ramifications.

The war was triggered by the October 7 Hamas-led massacre, when some 3,000 terrorists burst across the border by land, air and sea, killing some 1,200 people and seizing over 240 hostages of all ages.

Source: Times of Israel

www.timesofisrael.com

Bangladesh backs South Africa’s genocide claims against Israel

South Asian country, which rejects ties with Jerusalem, joins chorus demanding that The Hague order Israel to stop military campaign -- despite own alleged rights abuses
www.timesofisrael.com www.timesofisrael.com
 
Maybe Israel should say we are converting and then in future Palestinian generation could be like I’m glad Israel attacked us in 20-21st century like savages and showed us the light like how SC people refer to killing of their ancestors.
 
FearlessRoar said:
Bangladesh backs South Africa’s genocide claims against Israel

Bangladesh’s Foreign Ministry on Sunday voiced support for genocide claims against Israel amid the war against Hamas, joining others backing a controversial South African application at the Hague.
Click to expand...

Great to see Bangladesh doing the right thing.
 
Namibia slams former colonial ruler Germany for defending Israel in ICJ genocide case

The Namibia presidency issues scathing criticism against Germany for failing to draw lessons from its genocide against the people of Namibia.

Namibia has slammed Germany’s "shocking" move to support Israel in the genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) brought by South Africa, as Israel's war on Gaza entered its 100th day on Sunday.

The president of Namibia, a southern African country where the first genocide of the 20th century took place under German colonial rule, lamented "Germany's inability to draw lessons from its horrific history".

President Hage Geingob expressed "deep concern" for the German government's decision of having "rejected the morally upright indictment brought forward by South Africa".

Geingob accused Berlin of "ignoring" the "deaths of over 23,000 Palestinians in Gaza" and defending in front of the ICJ "the genocidal and gruesome acts of the Israeli Government".

"Germany cannot morally express commitment to the United Nations Convention against genocide, including atonement for the genocide in Namibia, whilst supporting the equivalent of a holocaust and genocide in Gaza," the statement said.

"President Geingob appeals to the German government to reconsider its untimely decision to intervene as a third party in defence and support of the genocidal acts of Israel before the ICJ," it added.

"No peace-loving human being can ignore the carnage waged against Palestinians in Gaza."
Click to expand...

Reference: https://www.newarab.com/news/namibia-slams-germany-defending-israel-icj-gaza-case.

Very good from Namibia.
 
For once, these countries have stood for what is right. This one-sided war and killing should stop now. Palestine has lost more people especially children than we could ever see again.
 
Met police review Israeli ‘war crimes’ claims by pro-Palestinians

The Metropolitan police’s war crimes unit met a pro-Palestinian campaign group last week to hear claims of war crimes committed against Gaza by Israel.

On Tuesday the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) said it had given hard drives and dossiers of evidence to the Scotland Yard unit.

Scotland Yard said it was now assessing the evidence to determine whether a formal investigation into the accusations should be carried out.

The pro-Palestine campaign group said they have given evidence related to British politicians of alleged war crimes. They previously also issued intent to prosecute British politicians for aiding and abetting war crimes.

Apparent evidence was provided by the group in relation to senior politicians, including government ministers, as well as Israeli ministers and private British individuals.

An Israeli military spokesperson told The Independent: “The IDF is fully committed to respecting all applicable international legal obligations, including the Law of Armed Conflict.”

The ICJP previously issued Sir Keir Starmer, Emily Thornberry and David Lammy with a public notice of intention to prosecute any UK officials allegedly complict with war crimes.

The group accused the Labour politicians of speaking out in defence of Israel’s withholding of food, water and electricity to Gaza. Mr Starmer, Ms Thornberry and Mr Lammy were approached for comment.

Scotland Yard confirmed that its war crimes team had received more than 40 referrals in recent weeks, including from people returning from the region.

A Met spokesperson told The Independent: “The information within the referral will now be assessed by specialist officers as part of a scoping exercise to determine whether any further action or formal investigation will be carried out.

“At this time, there is no UK-based investigation into this matter, or any other matters relating to this particular conflict.

“We remain focussed on supporting victims and witnesses who report core international crimes, as well as supporting the UK families of those directly affected by the terrorist attacks in Israel on 7 October last year.”
​
SOURCE: The Independent
 

War on Gaza: UK's Cameron okayed arms sales to Israel despite Foreign Office legal concerns​


UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron recommended British arms sales to Israel despite "serious concerns" in the Foreign Office that it had breached international law in Gaza, according to a government document filed in the High Court.

The document, which has been reviewed by Middle East Eye, was filed by the government in its defence to a challenge brought by legal and human rights groups attempting to stop UK arms sales to Israel for its ongoing campaign in Gaza.

At least 24,620 people have been killed and 61,830 wounded, with an estimated 70 percent of the enclave’s civilian infrastructure destroyed since 7 October.

The 22-page defence lays out the findings of the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office unit that assessed Israel's commitment and capability to comply with international humanitarian law (IHL) and advised Cameron.

In multiple reports between 10 November and 8 December, the unit raised several concerns about Israel's compliance with the law, according to the court filing.

The unit appears to have been satisfied on some counts, after Israeli officials responded to detailed questions from the Foreign Office about their conduct in a 26 November report in which, among other points, they insisted the Israeli military had incorporated IHL "into all aspects of military operations".

But other points, including a lack of Israeli response about "the reasons for restricting the quantity of supplies of food, water, and medical supplies", raised concerns for the unit, but were attributed to different interpretations of the law.

Israel's position, the unit noted, was that it was "acting in accordance with what it believes to be the relevant legal obligations in relation to humanitarian assistance", according to the filing.

"It is, therefore, possible that this is a case of disagreement about what the law requires rather than an intentional disregard of IHL," the document says.

The revelations in the document come a week after Cameron told the parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee that he could not "recall every bit of paper" put in front of him and it was not his job to make a "legal adjudication" when asked if government lawyers had advised him that Israel had breached the law.

Follow our live blog for all the latest on the Israel-Palestine war

However, the document shows that the final decision of whether Israel was committed to complying with the law was left to Cameron.

"While there remain incidents on which we do not have sufficient information from which to draw a conclusion on compliance... in light of the information received and other inquiries undertaken, we are satisfied that we do have sufficient information on compliance to inform our overarching view of Israel's compliance," the unit concluded, noting that "the assessment on commitment is subject to a ministerial decision".

The Export Control Joint Unit - a cross-departmental body that oversees UK's export controls and licensing for military and dual-use items - told Cameron on 8 December that he had three options when it came to advising whether export licenses for sales to Israel should be approved.

He could either not suspend them, but keep them under careful review; suspend where it was assessed items might be used to carry out Israeli military options in the conflict in Gaza; or suspend all licenses.

Cameron decided on 12 December that he was satisfied Israel was committed to complying with international humanitarian law, according to the filing.

He advised the Trade and Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch not to suspend export licenses for UK arms sales to Israel, which she followed.

Source : Middle East Eye
 
‘Criminal complaints’ filed against Israeli President Herzog in Switzerland

Israeli President Isaac Herzog is the subject of criminal complaints during his visit to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Swiss prosecutors have confirmed, as Israel finds itself accused of committing war crimes in Gaza.

“The criminal complaints will be examined according to the usual procedure,” the Office of the Swiss Attorney General said on Friday, adding that it would contact the Swiss foreign ministry to examine the question of immunity of the individual concerned.

In theory, third countries do not hold criminal jurisdiction over current heads of state, heads of government and foreign ministers of other countries.

The reasons behind the complaints and who filed them were not specified.

A spokesperson for Herzog’s office did not comment on the statement by Swiss prosecutors, saying only that Herzog had been to Davos to present Israel’s position on the situation in Gaza.

The AFP news agency obtained a statement allegedly issued by the people behind the complaint, entitled “Legal Action Against Crimes Against Humanity”. It said several unnamed individuals had filed charges with federal prosecutors and with cantonal authorities in Basel, Bern and Zurich.

The statement said the plaintiffs were seeking a criminal prosecution in parallel to a case brought before the United Nations International Court of Justice (ICJ) by South Africa, which has accused Israel of genocide in its offensive in Gaza.

While it could take years for the ICJ to produce a final verdict, South Africa asked the court to instruct “provisional measures” – a temporary order for Israel to stop the war – while the case is pending.

Israel has called South Africa’s accusations “baseless” and a “blood libel”.

Universal Jurisdiction

The reasons behind the complaints filed to the Swiss prosecutor are unclear, said Al Jazeera’s diplomatic editor James Bays. They could relate to something that took place in Switzerland while Herzog attended the Davos summit, he explained, or they could relate to previous statements Herzog made about Palestinians, which were also cited by South Africa’s legal team at the Hague while presenting their case.

Days after October 7 – when Hamas fighters launched an unprecedented attack into southern Israel killing nearly 1,200 people – the Israeli president said it was not only Hamas fighters but “an entire nation” that was responsible for the violence and that Israel would fight “until we break their backbone”.

After the Hamas attack, Israel launched a ferocious bombardment of Gaza that has killed more than 24,500 people, 70 percent of whom are women and children, according to the United Nations.

If prosecuted, such a case filed to the Swiss court would be dealt with under “universal jurisdiction”, William Shabas, a professor of international criminal and human rights law at Middlesex University in the UK, told Al Jazeera.

Under international law, universal jurisdiction is based on the principle that certain crimes are so serious that their perpetrators must be prosecuted transcending borders. This means that states or international organisations can file legal complaints against people regardless of their nationality or where the alleged crime was committed. Such cases are usually related to international crimes.

“It used to be extremely rare for this to happen but more and more, particularly in European countries, there is an effort to prosecute such crimes – the crime of genocide, war crimes, and so on, using universal jurisdiction,” Shabas said.

“The obstacle would be the alleged immunity of a president of a country – that is going to be a real problem,” he added.

Addressing the issue of immunity, the statement seen by AFP suggested that it could be lifted “in certain circumstances”, including in cases of alleged crimes against humanity, adding that “these conditions are met in this case”.

Another obstacle for the prosecutor to proceed, Shabas said, would be obtaining “a level of political approval”.
​
SOURCE: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024...ainst-israeli-president-herzog-in-switzerland
 
World Court to deliver ruling in Israel genocide case on Jan 26

Judges at the International Court of Justice will rule on Friday whether or not they will grant emergency measures against Israel following accusations by South Africa that the Israeli military operation in Gaza is a state-led genocide.

The United Nations’ top court issued a statement on Wednesday saying the 17-judge panel will hand down its ruling in court on Jan. 26 at 1200 GMT.

Earlier this month, in two days of hearings, South Africa asked the ICJ, also known as the World Court, to order an emergency suspension of Israel’s devastating military campaign in the Palestinian enclave.


www.brecorder.com

World Court to deliver ruling in Israel genocide case on Jan 26

AMSTERDAM: Judges at the International Court of Justice will rule on Friday whether or not they will grant emergency...
www.brecorder.com
 
The International Court of Justice said it will deliver its ruling on Friday on whether to enact provisional measures to temporarily suspend Israel's military campaign in Gaza or not.
 
The Bald Eagle said:
The International Court of Justice said it will deliver its ruling on Friday on whether to enact provisional measures to temporarily suspend Israel's military campaign in Gaza or not.
Click to expand...
They wont. They are all a joke. Dont expect any major changes. The Palestinian genocide will continue.
 
Court orders Israel to take all measures to prevent genocide

The ICJ orders Israel to take all measures within its power to prevent genocide.

It says Israel must ensure its forces do not commit genocide and ensure preservation of evidence of alleged genocide.

Al Jazeera
 
ICJ orders Israel to report to it within one month

Israel must report to the court within a month on what it is doing to uphold the order to take all measures within its power to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza.

Judge Donoghue says the ruling creates international legal obligations for Israel.

Al Jazeera
 
Court orders Israel to prevent, punish genocide incitement

With the reading continuing, the ICJ orders Israel to take measures to prevent and punish direct incitement of genocide in the Gaza Strip.

Al Jazeera
 
Israel must allow humanitarian assistance for Gaza: UN court

Israel must take immediate, effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance in the Gaza Strip, the court says.

Al Jazeera
 
Israel must take steps to prevent genocide in Gaza, UN court says in ruling on temporary measures

The top court for the United Nations on Friday ordered Israel to take measures to prevent and punish direct incitement of genocide in its war in Gaza.

"The state of Israel shall... take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts within the scope of Article II of the genocide convention," the International Court of Justice (ICJ) said.

In a sweeping ruling, a large majority of the 17-judge panel of the ICJ voted for urgent measures which covered most of what South Africa asked for with the notable exception of ordering a halt to Israeli military action in Gaza.

The court ordered Israel to refrain from any acts that could fall under the genocide convention and also ensure that its troops do not commit any genocidal acts in Gaza.

Israel must report to the court within a month on what it's doing to uphold the order.

The decision is legally-binding, but the court has no way to enforce it.

Former Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth told CBC News on Friday that the court didn't have the capacity to make a ruling on a ceasefire because Hamas is a non-state actor.

"I think, frankly, this is as far as the court can go," said Roth.

Roth said the ruling could potentially make an "enormous difference" to the lives of Palestinians on the ground and apply "big political pressure" for Israel to abide by the ruling.

The ICJ, also known as the World Court, did not deal with South Africa's main allegation on whether Israel is committing genocide, though it said Friday it would not throw out the case, as Israel requested. Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy said Thursday he hoped the court would toss the "spurious and specious charges."

Palestinians appear to be a protected group under the genocide convention, the court said.

During two days of public hearings earlier this month, South Africa condemned Hamas for its brutal attack in Israel in October but said there is no justification for the scale of Israel's response in Gaza.

South Africa has asked the court to order Israel to cease its assault on the Palestinian territory, among the nine emergency measures it has asked for. It has also pushed for more humanitarian aid to enter Gaza.

Israel rejected the genocide claim outright and argued in the court that South Africa's claim was "distorted." Israel also said it had a right to defend itself and was targeting Hamas, not Palestinians civilians.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said Canada supports the court and is "watching carefully" as it deliberates on the allegation — but he would not indicate whether Canada agrees with the allegation, or even if Canada would recognize the ICJ's ruling if it does find Israel to be guilty of genocide.

"I'm not going to comment on what could be an eventual finding by a process that we support as it unfolds," Trudeau said at a news conference in New Brunswick last week.

An estimated 1,200 people were killed during the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, including Israeli security forces and civilians, along with foreign nationals, according to the Israeli government. About 250 others were taken hostage. Israel responded with tremendous force in Gaza, saying its attacks are intended to take out Hamas and its supporters, not civilians.

The health ministry in Gaza has said more than 25,000 people in the territory have been killed in the conflict as of Monday. The tally does not differentiate between civilians and Hamas fighters.

Israel has also cut off supply deliveries and electricity leading to a humanitarian crisis and desperate pleas for food, medicine and water. Limited humanitarian aid has been allowed into Gaza over the last 100 days.

Source: CBC News

 
The verdict is a bit tame but still a good one.

Thank you to the South Africans.
 

South Africa and EU say they expect ‘full and immediate’ implementation of ICJ ruling​


German Foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, has said Israel “must adhere” to the ruling by the international court of justice, but that Hamas also needs to release its remaining hostages.

“The international court of justice did not decide on the main issue, but ordered temporary measures in the interim legal protection proceedings,” she said, AP reported. She said:

But these are also binding under international law. Israel must adhere to this.

She added:

At the same time, the court made it clear that Israel’s actions in Gaza follow the barbaric terror of 7 October, and recalled that Hamas is also bound by international humanitarian law and must finally release all hostages.

We will support this with all our might, as well as the measure ordered by Israel to urgently allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Source : The Guardian
 
It wont stop the arrogant Zionists but huge respect for South Africa for doing what not ONE Muslim nation had the courage to do.

Until the Muslims stand up this oppression will continue.
 
MenInG said:
So instructions to Israel from the court

Please be gentle with the Palestinians you are killing, Pretty please?!!
Click to expand...

It shows the huge political and military power the western world has along with Israel.

There have been many tragic and horrifying violent acts over the last 20 years but this is on another level. Animals are feeding on some of the bodies in Gaza now. Yet nobody can stop this?
 
Statement by South Africa welcoming the provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice against Israel

Today marks a decisive victory for the international rule of law and a significant milestone in the search for justice for the Palestinian people. In a landmark ruling, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has determined that Israel’s actions in Gaza are plausibly genocidal and has indicated provisional measures on that basis. For the implementation of the international rule of law, the decision is a momentous one. South Africa thanks the Court for its swift ruling.

The United Nations Security Council will now be formally notified of the Court’s order pursuant to Article 41(2) of the Court’s Statute. The veto power wielded by individual states can not be permitted to thwart international justice, not least in light of the ever-worsening situation in Gaza brought about by Israel’s acts and omissions in violation of the Genocide Convention.

Third States are now on notice of the existence of a serious risk of genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza. They must, therefore, also act independently and immediately to prevent genocide by Israel and to ensure that they are not themselves in violation of the Genocide Convention, including by aiding or assisting in the commission of genocide. This necessarily imposes an obligation on all States to cease funding and facilitating Israel's military actions, which are plausibly genocidal.

Above all else, the provisional measures are directly binding on Israel, which is required pursuant to the Court’s order and to the Genocide Convention itself, to stop all acts by it that are plausibly genocidal, such as those raised by South Africa in its Application and request for the indication of provisional measures. There is no credible basis for Israel to continue to claim that its military actions are in full compliance with international law, including the Genocide Convention, having regard to the Court’s ruling.

South Africa sincerely hopes that Israel will not act to frustrate the application of this Order, as it has publicly threatened to do, but that it will instead act to comply with it fully, as it is bound to do.

South Africa will continue to act within the institutions of global governance to protect the rights, including the fundamental right to life, of Palestinians in Gaza – which continue to remain at urgent risk including from Israeli military assault, starvation and disease – and to obtain the fair and equal application of international law to all, in the interest of our collective humanity. Notably, South Africa will continue to do everything within its power to preserve the existence of the Palestinian people as a group, to end all acts of apartheid and genocide against the Palestinian people and to walk with them towards the realisation of their collective right to self-determination, for, as Nelson Mandela momentously declared, “our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians”.

The indication by this Court of provisional measures pursuant to the Genocide Convention marks a significant historical step towards that goal.
 
MenInG said:
So instructions to Israel from the court

Please be gentle with the Palestinians you are killing, Pretty please?!!
Click to expand...
You know this is actually a seismic move.

I admit I was disappointed at first.

But the court just wiped the floor with Israeli President etc by reading their statements out in public. How embarassing that these demons that were so full of hubris and confidence when massacring innocents were (metaphorically) hung by their own words.

Israel was above criticism...but they are creeping closer to isolation. The court case has not been thrown out. Britain will have to review weapons sales to Israel. Politicians will be very careful because if there is a slim chance that Israel gets done for genocide, then they may get used of abetting.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart to South Africa.
 
DeadlyVenom said:
You know this is actually a seismic move.

I admit I was disappointed at first.

But the court just wiped the floor with Israeli President etc by reading their statements out in public. How embarassing that these demons that were so full of hubris and confidence when massacring innocents were (metaphorically) hung by their own words.

Israel was above criticism...but they are creeping closer to isolation. The court case has not been thrown out. Britain will have to review weapons sales to Israel. Politicians will be very careful because if there is a slim chance that Israel gets done for genocide, then they may get used of abetting.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart to South Africa.
Click to expand...

Any official response from the UK, Sunak etc? UK has been fully complicit politically and militarily with this genocide. The talk has been pure lies.
 
Pakistan welcomes World Court’s ruling, reiterates call for immediate ceasefire in Gaza

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) hailed on Friday the World Court’s ruling that directed Israel to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza, and called for immediate and unconditional ceasefire in the besieged strip.

“Pakistan welcomes the provisional measures ordered today [Friday] by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), whereby the Court has concluded that, prima facie, it has the jurisdiction to entertain the case against Israel and that South Africa’s claims of genocide are plausible,” the foreign office statement read.

South Africa brought the case, accusing Israel of breaching the 1948 UN Genocide Convention, set up in the ashes of World War II and the Holocaust.

Pretoria “does not need to prove that Israel is committing genocide,” said Juliette McIntyre, international law expert from the University of South Australia.

“They simply need to establish that there is a plausible risk of genocide occurring,” she told AFP earlier.

In Friday’s ruling, the judges said Israel must take all measures within its power to prevent its troops from committing genocide, punish and must take steps to improve the humanitarian situation.

While the ICJ did not order a ceasefire, it said it would not throw out the genocide case, ruling that the Palestinians appeared to be a protected group under the 1948 Genocide Convention. It did not decide the merits of the genocide allegations.

EU says it expects full implementation of World Court orders

“The implementation of these provisional measures requires an immediate and unconditional ceasefire to bring about an end to the suffering faced by the people of Gaza,” the FO said.

“Since October 7, 2023, Israel has engaged in military aggression and criminal actions against the Palestinian people. We consider the ICJ’s ruling timely and a significant milestone in the pursuit of justice for the Palestinian people and international accountability of Israel.

“Pakistan calls for the full and effective implementation of the ICJ’s decision so that basic human rights, dignity and identity of Palestinian people as a distinct group are upheld and protected, as stipulated by the UN Charter, relevant UN resolutions, and international law,” the statement added.

Islamabad also reaffirmed its “unwavering support to the Palestinian people in their just and legitimate struggle for the realization of their inalienable right to self-determination.”

The FO statement mentioned that Pakistan had supported the application filed by South Africa before the ICJ against Israel under the 1948 Genocide Convention, in follow up to which the Court announced on Friday the provisional measures.

Source: Business Recorder
 
Atleast the conscience of South African government is alive

=========
BREAKING: South Africa has lodged an "urgent request" with the International Court of Justice to consider whether Israel's military operations targeting the city of Rafah constitute a breach of its provisional orders.

www.breakingnews.ie

South Africa lodges ‘urgent request’ with UN court over Israel’s attack on Rafah | BreakingNews.ie

South Africa said it has asked the court to consider if the offensive represents a breach of provisional orders made in the genocide last month
www.breakingnews.ie www.breakingnews.ie
 
The Bald Eagle said:
Atleast the conscience of South African government is alive

=========
BREAKING: South Africa has lodged an "urgent request" with the International Court of Justice to consider whether Israel's military operations targeting the city of Rafah constitute a breach of its provisional orders.

www.breakingnews.ie

South Africa lodges ‘urgent request’ with UN court over Israel’s attack on Rafah | BreakingNews.ie

South Africa said it has asked the court to consider if the offensive represents a breach of provisional orders made in the genocide last month
www.breakingnews.ie www.breakingnews.ie
Click to expand...

South Africa have been very gutsy. Respect.

They didn't just offer lip services. They took actions even though they were not a party to the conflict.
 
US Threatens To Block New UN Security Council Vote On Gaza

The UN Security Council could hold a vote next week, sought by Algeria, on a resolution seeking an "immediate" ceasefire in Gaza, diplomatic sources told AFP Saturday, although Washington again appeared set to block it.

Algeria launched discussions on a new draft after the International Court of Justice ruled in late January that Israel must do all it can to prevent genocidal acts in its war in Gaza, which it says is targeting Hamas militants.

The latest version of the text, seen by AFP Saturday, "demands an immediate humanitarian ceasefire that must be respected by all parties."

It also "rejects forced displacement of the Palestinian civilian population," and it "demands the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages."

The Gaza war began with Hamas's October 7 attack which resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel responded by launching a relentless assault on Gaza that has killed at least 28,858 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.

Algeria has requested a UN Security Council vote on Tuesday, but Washington signalled it is likely to veto the measure.

US President Joe Biden is working with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the leaders of Egypt and Qatar on a hostage deal that would bring about six weeks of a "prolonged pause in fighting," US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said in a statement on Algeria's proposed draft.

"The resolution put forward in the Security Council, in contrast, would not achieve these outcomes, and indeed, may run counter to them," Thomas-Greenfield said.

"The United States does not support action on this draft resolution," she added. "Should it come up for a vote as drafted, it will not be adopted."

Like previous texts opposed by Israel and the United States, the new text does not condemn the unprecedented attack by Hamas.

Earlier this month, Thomas-Greenfield said that Algeria's latest initiative risked derailing the negotiations.

"We believe that it is high time now for the Security Council to decide on a humanitarian ceasefire resolution," Palestinian UN envoy Riyad Mansour said recently, adding there is "massive support" for the text's elements among council members.

In October and December, despite international pressure over Gaza's growing humanitarian crisis, Washington vetoed texts calling for a ceasefire.

The Security Council has adopted just two resolutions on Gaza since October 7, including one calling for large-scale delivery of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territory.

SOURCE: AFP
 

All talks and no action is typical of these futile institutions​

======

Hearings on Israel’s occupation of Palestine open at world court​

Judges at The Hague to provide UN with advisory opinion on occupation’s legal status

A week of hearings in the UN’s top court has opened on the legal consequences of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, with more than 50 states due to address the judges.

The Palestinian foreign minister, Riyad al-Maliki, will speak first in the legal proceedings at the international court of justice (ICJ) in The Hague.

In 2022, the UN general assembly asked the court for an advisory opinion on the occupation.

The hearings will be held until 26 February, after which the judges are expected to take several months to deliberate before issuing their judgment.

While Israel has ignored such opinions in the past, it could increase political pressure over its war in Gaza, which has killed about 29,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, since 7 October 2023.

Among countries scheduled to participate
They also come amid mounting concerns about an Israeli ground offensive against the city of Rafah, a last refuge for more than 1 million Palestinians after they fled to the south of the enclave to avoid Israeli assaults.

Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem – areas of historic Palestine that the Palestinians want for a state – in the six-day war of 1967. It withdrew from Gaza in 2005, but, along with neighbouring Egypt, still controls the enclave’s borders.

It is the second time that the general assembly has asked the ICJ, also known as the world court, for an advisory opinion related to the occupied zone.

Source: The Guardian
 
The Bald Eagle said:

All talks and no action is typical of these futile institutions​

======

Hearings on Israel’s occupation of Palestine open at world court​

Judges at The Hague to provide UN with advisory opinion on occupation’s legal status

A week of hearings in the UN’s top court has opened on the legal consequences of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, with more than 50 states due to address the judges.

The Palestinian foreign minister, Riyad al-Maliki, will speak first in the legal proceedings at the international court of justice (ICJ) in The Hague.

In 2022, the UN general assembly asked the court for an advisory opinion on the occupation.

The hearings will be held until 26 February, after which the judges are expected to take several months to deliberate before issuing their judgment.

While Israel has ignored such opinions in the past, it could increase political pressure over its war in Gaza, which has killed about 29,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, since 7 October 2023.

Among countries scheduled to participate
They also come amid mounting concerns about an Israeli ground offensive against the city of Rafah, a last refuge for more than 1 million Palestinians after they fled to the south of the enclave to avoid Israeli assaults.

Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem – areas of historic Palestine that the Palestinians want for a state – in the six-day war of 1967. It withdrew from Gaza in 2005, but, along with neighbouring Egypt, still controls the enclave’s borders.

It is the second time that the general assembly has asked the ICJ, also known as the world court, for an advisory opinion related to the occupied zone.

Source: The Guardian
Click to expand...

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki on Monday demanded an immediate end to Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories at the start of hearings on the legal status of the disputed land at the United Nations' top court.

More than 50 states will present arguments before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague until Feb. 26, following a 2022 request from the U.N. General Assembly for an advisory, or non-binding, opinion on the occupation.

Israeli leaders have long disputed that the territories are formally occupied on the basis that they were captured from Jordan and Egypt during a 1967 war rather than from a sovereign Palestine.

Al-Maliki accused Israel of subjecting Palestinians to decades of discrimination and apartheid - accusations Israel has rejected - arguing that they had been left with the choice of "displacement, subjugation, or death".

"The only solution consistent with international law is for this illegal occupation to come to an immediate, unconditional and total end," he said.

The judges are expected to take several months to deliberate before issuing their opinion.

Israel has ignored such legal opinions in the past, but this one could increase political pressure over its war in Gaza, which has killed about 29,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7.

Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem - areas of historic Palestine which the Palestinians want for a state - in the 1967 conflict. It withdrew from Gaza in 2005, but, along with neighbouring Egypt, still controls its borders.

Reuters
 
At a hearing before the U.N.’s highest court, South Africa on Tuesday called Israel’s policies toward Palestinians an “extreme form of apartheid” and argued that its occupation of territory sought for an eventual Palestinian state was “fundamentally illegal.”

The hearing at the International Court of Justice in The Hague is one of two matters being heard about Israel, part of a concerted effort to leverage the authority of the court and the global reach of the U.N. to stop the war in Gaza and examine the legality of Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians.

Starting this week and lasting six days, the court is hearing arguments on Israel’s conduct, following a request by the United Nations General Assembly more than a year ago. In the other matter, a case, which began in January, South Africa accuses Israel of committing genocide in its ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza.

Israel has strongly rejected those accusations.

The latest proceedings, which began on Monday, focus on the legality of Israel’s “occupation, settlement and annexation” of Palestinian-majority territories, including the West Bank and East Jerusalem. South Africa and many other countries that have asked to address the court argue that Israel’s decades-long occupation violates the Palestinians’ right to self-determination and that its security apparatus, including a giant wall, amounts to racial segregation.

More than 50 countries and three regional blocs are scheduled to argue before the 15-judge bench over the next week, a level of participation never before seen at the court.

The hearings on Israel’s policies have gained urgency amid the bloodshed of the war in Gaza. They come less than a month after the court ordered Israel to restrain its attacks in the Hamas-controlled territory in the genocide case.

The court is expected to answer the questions on the legality of Israel’s conduct with an advisory opinion that will be nonbinding.

Palestinians “continue to be subjected to discriminating land zoning and planning policies, to punitive house demolitions and violent incursions into their villages, towns and cities,” South Africa’s ambassador to the Netherlands, Vusi Madonsela, said in an address to the court on Tuesday.

Israel has long rejected accusations that it operates an apartheid system, calling such allegations a slur and pointing to a history of being singled out for condemnation by U.N. bodies and tribunals.

Also on Tuesday, the 22-nation Arab Group of the U.N. submitted a resolution to the Security Council calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza. The United States vetoed the resolution for the third time.

Israel said it would not participate in this week’s hearings in The Hague, saying the premise before the court was unwarranted and biased. Last year, Israel delivered a letter to the court in which it argued that the focus of the proceedings failed to “recognize Israel’s right and duty to protect its citizens,” to recognize Israel’s security or to take into account years of agreements with the Palestinians to negotiate “the permanent status of the territory, security arrangements, settlements and borders.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said in a statement on Monday that the case is “part of the Palestinian attempt to dictate the results of the political agreement without negotiations.”

The war in Gaza, which the Gazan Health Ministry said has killed more than 29,000 people and which was started by last year’s Hamas-led terrorist attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200, is foremost in the public’s mind, but it is not the war most relevant to the present hearings.

Israel captured the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan and the Gaza Strip from Egypt in a 1967 war with its Arab neighbors. Israel ended its occupation of Gaza in 2005. It considers parts of the occupied West Bank to be disputed territory, and has built settlements there, which much of the world considers illegal. After the 1967 war, Israel formally annexed East Jerusalem and considers the unified city its capital.

South Africa and other speakers have argued that the proliferation of Jewish settlements, many of which are full-fledged towns, suggests that the occupation is not temporary, but permanent.

Support for the Palestinians has long been a popular rallying cry in South Africa and its governing party, the African National Congress, has often compared Israel’s policies to those of apartheid-era South Africa.

In his arguments on Tuesday, Mr. Madonsela, the South African diplomat, recalled his country’s history of racial segregation and invoked one of apartheid’s most famous critics, the Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Citing the separate court systems, land zoning rules, roads and housing rights for Palestinians, he said Israel had put in place a “two-tier system of laws, rules and services” that benefit Jewish settlers while “denying Palestinians rights.”

Mr. Madonsela quoted a 2010 statement from Archbishop Tutu, in which the Nobel laureate said Israel maintains a system for the “two populations in the West Bank, which provides preferential services, development and benefits for Jewish settlers while imposing harsh conditions on Palestinians. This, in my book, is apartheid. It is untenable.”

South Africans see “an even more extreme form of the apartheid that was institutionalized against Black people in my country,” Mr. Madonsela said. He said that South Africa had a special obligation to call out apartheid practices wherever they occur. He also called on Israel to dismantle the separation wall between Israel and the West Bank, which the court had ordered be removed in 2004 and still stands.

NYT

www.nytimes.com

South Africa Says Palestinians Are Enduring ‘Extreme Form of Apartheid’

The hearings, which focus on Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, make up one of the two matters regarding Israel currently before the International Court of Justice.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
 
A great initiative from South Africa, but I don't think the ICJ will favor South Africa.
 
Israel on Thursday accused South Africa of exploiting the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to help the Palestinian militant group Hamas by again petitioning the World Court to take measures against Israel.

“South Africa continues to act as the legal arm of Hamas in an attempt to undermine Israel’s inherent right to defend itself and its citizens, and to release all of the hostages,” Israel’s foreign ministry said.

“The repeated requests for provisional measures made by South Africa in order to assist Hamas are yet another cynical exploitation of the International Court of Justice in the Hague, which has already twice rejected the baseless attempts to deny Israel its right and obligation of self-defense,” it said.

Officials in South Africa did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

South Africa in January asked the World Court to declare that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza and to order Israel to stop its military campaign in Gaza. The court instead issued a more general order that Israel must make sure it prevents acts of genocide.

South Africa is now asking the top UN court to order further steps against Israel, which it said was breaching measures already in place. It said those in Gaza were facing starvation and asked the court to order that all parties cease hostilities and release all hostages and detainees.

“Israel acts and will continue to act in accordance with international law, including by facilitating humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, regardless of any legal proceedings,” the Israeli ministry said. “We call on the ICJ to reject outright the new request of the representatives of Hamas.”

The war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and included the seizure of 253 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Israel’s military campaign has since killed more than 30,000 Palestinians, also mostly civilians, Gaza health authorities say.

Israel has pledged to continue its offensive until it eliminates Hamas, which rules Gaza and is sworn to Israel’s destruction, and secures the release of more than 130 Israeli hostages still in Gaza.

 
World court orders Israel to take action to address Gaza famine

Judges at the International Court of Justice on Thursday unanimously ordered Israel to take all the necessary and effective action to ensure basic food supplies arrive without delay to the Palestinian population in Gaza.

The ICJ said the Palestinians in Gaza face worsening conditions of life, and famine and starvation are spreading.

"The court observes that Palestinians in Gaza are no longer facing only a risk of famine (...) but that famine is setting in," the judges said in their order.

The new measures were requested by South Africa as part of its ongoing case that accuses Israel of state-led genocide in Gaza.

In January the ICJ, also known as the World Court, ordered Israel to refrain from any acts that could fall under the Genocide Convention and to ensure its troops commit no genocidal acts against Palestinians in Gaza.

In Thursday's order the court reaffirmed the January measures but added Israel must take action to ensure unhindered provision of basic services and humanitarian assistance including food, water and electricity as well as medical supplies and medical care to Palestinians throughout Gaza.

The judges added that this could be done "by increasing the capacity and number of land crossing points and maintaining them open for as long as necessary". The court ordered Israel to submit a report in a month after the order to detail how it had given effect to the ruling.


tribune.com.pk

World court orders Israel to take action to address Gaza famine | The Express Tribune

ICJ says Palestinians in Gaza face worsening conditions of life, and famine and starvation are spreading
tribune.com.pk tribune.com.pk
 
Cricket Warrior said:
World court orders Israel to take action to address Gaza famine

Judges at the International Court of Justice on Thursday unanimously ordered Israel to take all the necessary and effective action to ensure basic food supplies arrive without delay to the Palestinian population in Gaza.

The ICJ said the Palestinians in Gaza face worsening conditions of life, and famine and starvation are spreading.

"The court observes that Palestinians in Gaza are no longer facing only a risk of famine (...) but that famine is setting in," the judges said in their order.

The new measures were requested by South Africa as part of its ongoing case that accuses Israel of state-led genocide in Gaza.

In January the ICJ, also known as the World Court, ordered Israel to refrain from any acts that could fall under the Genocide Convention and to ensure its troops commit no genocidal acts against Palestinians in Gaza.

In Thursday's order the court reaffirmed the January measures but added Israel must take action to ensure unhindered provision of basic services and humanitarian assistance including food, water and electricity as well as medical supplies and medical care to Palestinians throughout Gaza.

The judges added that this could be done "by increasing the capacity and number of land crossing points and maintaining them open for as long as necessary". The court ordered Israel to submit a report in a month after the order to detail how it had given effect to the ruling.


tribune.com.pk

World court orders Israel to take action to address Gaza famine | The Express Tribune

ICJ says Palestinians in Gaza face worsening conditions of life, and famine and starvation are spreading
tribune.com.pk tribune.com.pk
Click to expand...
This ICJ is only going through formalities but so far they have not been able to provide any sort of justice to the Palestinians, Justice delayed is justice denied!
 
Ireland said on Wednesday it would intervene in South Africa's genocide case against Israel, in the strongest signal to date of Dublin's concern about Israeli operations in Gaza since Oct. 7.

Announcing the move, Foreign Minister Micheal Martin said that while it was for the World Court to decide whether genocide is being committed, he wanted to be clear that Hamas' Oct. 7 attack and what is happening in Gaza now "represents the blatant violation of international humanitarian law on a mass scale."


Reuters
 
Netanyahu’s office hosts emergency talks on feared ICC warrants for PM, ministers

Israel is increasingly worried by the prospect of the International Criminal Court in The Hague issuing arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli political and military leaders for alleged breaches of international law in Gaza, Israeli television reported Thursday.

According to Channel 12 news, three ministers and several government legal experts held an “emergency discussion” at the Prime Minister’s Office on Tuesday about how to fend off the potential warrants.

The meeting was convened after Jerusalem received messages indicating that such warrants could be issued in the near future, the report said, without citing any sources.

Foreign Minister Israel Katz’s office confirmed to The Times of Israel that the meeting took place and said there were also discussions about the possibility that warrants could be issued against IDF officers.

Netanyahu raised the matter in his meetings this week with Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Cameron and Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, and sought their help, the TV report said.

The television report said that during Tuesday’s discussion, which was attended by Katz, Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, it was decided that Israel would reach out to the court and “diplomatic figures with influence” in an effort to prevent the warrants from being issued.

Jerusalem reportedly feared the arrest warrants would be sought due to the humanitarian crisis amid the fighting in the Gaza Strip, with countries that accuse Israel of breaching international law and the Fourth Geneva Convention said to be leading the effort.

In February, a delegation of relatives of hostages being held by Hamas filed a war crimes complaint with the ICC against the terrorist organization’s leaders. The accusations in the filing included kidnapping, crimes of sexual violence, torture and other serious allegations.

The court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, visited Israel in December on an official trip, as Israel does not consider itself bound by the ICC. After touring some of the towns attacked by Hamas on October 7, 2023, and hearing testimonies from survivors, Khan said he had witnessed “scenes of calculated cruelty” and that it was clear to him the victims had been targeted because of their identities.

He also said he felt duty-bound to work with the court’s prosecutors to open investigations into Hamas’s actions on October 7.

In 2019, the ICC announced that it would be launching a probe into alleged war crimes committed by both sides during the 2014 Protective Edge Israel-Hamas conflict, Israeli settlement policy and the Israeli response to protests at the Gaza border. The probe was formally opened on March 3, 2021, and was met with strong criticism from Israel.

During Hamas’s October 7 onslaught on southern Israel, terrorists murdered some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped 253 men, women and children of all ages.

It is believed that 129 of the hostages remain in Gaza — not all of them alive — after 105 civilians were released from Hamas captivity during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released prior to that.

Three hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 12 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military.

The IDF has confirmed the deaths of 34 of those still held by Hamas, citing new intelligence and findings obtained by troops operating in Gaza.

One more person has been listed as missing since October 7, and their fate is still unknown.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza claims that more than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in the war, but the number cannot be independently verified as it is believed to include both Hamas terrorists and civilians, some of whom were killed as a consequence of the terror group’s own rocket misfires.

The IDF says it has killed over 13,000 terrorists in Gaza, in addition to some 1,000 who were killed inside Israel on and immediately following October 7.

Meanwhile, 260 troops IDF troops have been killed in the ground invasion of Gaza, bringing the total number of soldiers killed since October 7 to 604.

SOURCE: https://www.timesofisrael.com/netan...alks-on-feared-icc-warrants-for-pm-ministers/
 
Netanyahu’s office hosts emergency talks on feared ICC warrants for PM, ministers

Israel is increasingly worried by the prospect of the International Criminal Court in The Hague issuing arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli political and military leaders for alleged breaches of international law in Gaza, Israeli television reported Thursday.

According to Channel 12 news, three ministers and several government legal experts held an “emergency discussion” at the Prime Minister’s Office on Tuesday about how to fend off the potential warrants.

The meeting was convened after Jerusalem received messages indicating that such warrants could be issued in the near future, the report said, without citing any sources.

Israeli officials confirmed to The Times of Israel that the meeting took place and said there were also discussions about the possibility that warrants could be issued against IDF officers.

Netanyahu raised the matter in his meetings this week with Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Cameron and Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, and sought their help, the TV report said.

The television report said that during Tuesday’s discussion, which was attended by Katz, Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, it was decided that Israel would reach out to the court and “diplomatic figures with influence” in an effort to prevent the warrants from being issued.

Jerusalem reportedly feared the arrest warrants would be sought due to the humanitarian crisis amid the fighting in the Gaza Strip, with countries that accuse Israel of breaching international law and the Fourth Geneva Convention said to be leading the effort.

In February, a delegation of relatives of hostages being held by Hamas filed a war crimes complaint with the ICC against the terrorist organization’s leaders. The accusations in the filing included kidnapping, crimes of sexual violence, torture and other serious allegations.

The court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, visited Israel in December on an official trip, as Israel does not consider itself bound by the ICC. After touring some of the towns attacked by Hamas on October 7, 2023, and hearing testimonies from survivors, Khan said he had witnessed “scenes of calculated cruelty” and that it was clear to him the victims had been targeted because of their identities.

He also said he felt duty-bound to work with the court’s prosecutors to open investigations into Hamas’s actions on October 7.

In 2019, the ICC announced that it would be launching a probe into alleged war crimes committed by both sides during the 2014 Protective Edge Israel-Hamas conflict, Israeli settlement policy and the Israeli response to protests at the Gaza border. The probe was formally opened on March 3, 2021, and was met with strong criticism from Israel.

During Hamas’s October 7 onslaught on southern Israel, terrorists murdered some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped 253 men, women and children of all ages.

It is believed that 129 of the hostages remain in Gaza — not all of them alive — after 105 civilians were released from Hamas captivity during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released prior to that.

Three hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 12 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military.

The IDF has confirmed the deaths of 34 of those still held by Hamas, citing new intelligence and findings obtained by troops operating in Gaza.

One more person has been listed as missing since October 7, and their fate is still unknown.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza claims that more than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in the war, but the number cannot be independently verified as it is believed to include both Hamas terrorists and civilians, some of whom were killed as a consequence of the terror group’s own rocket misfires.

The IDF says it has killed over 13,000 terrorists in Gaza, in addition to some 1,000 who were killed inside Israel on and immediately following October 7.

Meanwhile, 260 troops IDF troops have been killed in the ground invasion of Gaza, bringing the total number of soldiers killed since October 7 to 604.

SOURCE: TIMES OF ISRAEL
 

ICC may issue arrest warrants against Israeli leaders over Gaza war​


Israeli officials on Monday appeared to be increasingly concerned that the International Criminal Court may issue arrest warrants against the country’s leaders, as international pressure mounts over its war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, Israeli airstrikes on the southern Gaza city of Rafah overnight and into Monday killed at least 22 people, including six women and five children, one of whom was just 5 days old, according to hospital records and an Associated Press reporter.

The ICC launched a probe three years ago into possible war crimes committed by Israel and Palestinian militants going back to the 2014 Israel-Hamas war, but it has given no indication such warrants are imminent. There was no comment from the court on Monday.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry said late Sunday that it had informed Israeli missions of “rumors” that warrants might be issued against senior political and military officials. It was not clear what sparked the Israeli concerns.

“We expect the court to prevent the issuance of arrest warrants against senior Israeli officials,” Foreign Minister Israel Katz said, adding that such warrants would “provide a morale boost” to Hamas and other militant groups.

A series of Israeli announcements in recent days about allowing more humanitarian aid into Gaza meanwhile appears to be aimed in part at heading off possible ICC action.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday that Israel “will never accept any attempt by the ICC to undermine its inherent right of self-defense.”

“The threat to seize the soldiers and officials of the Middle East’s only democracy and the world’s only Jewish state is outrageous. We will not bow to it,” he posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. It was not clear what prompted the post.

The ICC investigation covers allegations going back to the 2014 war in Gaza as well as Israel’s construction of Jewish settlements in occupied territory that the Palestinians want for a future state.

ICC prosecutor Karim Khan said during a visit to the region in December that the investigation is “moving forward at pace, with rigor, with determination and with an insistence that we act not on emotion but on solid evidence.”

Neither Israel nor its close ally the United States accept the ICC’s jurisdiction, but any warrants could put Israeli officials at risk of arrest in other countries. They would also serve as a major rebuke of Israel’s actions at a time when pro-Palestinian protests have spread across US college campuses.

The International Court of Justice, a separate body, is investigating whether Israel has committed acts of genocide in the ongoing war in Gaza, with any ruling expected to take years. Israel has rejected allegations of wrongdoing and accused both international courts of bias.

Israel has instead accused Hamas of genocide over its Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war. Militants stormed through army bases and farming communities across southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 hostages.

In response, Israel launched a massive air, sea and ground offensive that has killed over 34,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its tally.

Israel blames the high civilian death toll on Hamas because the militants fight in dense, residential areas. The military says it has killed over 12,000 militants, without providing evidence.

The war has driven around 80 percent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million from their homes, caused vast destruction in several towns and cities, and pushed northern Gaza to the brink of famine.

Israel has vowed to expand its ground offensive to the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where over 1 million Palestinians have sought shelter from fighting elsewhere. Israel says Rafah is the last Hamas stronghold, with thousands of fighters embedded there.

US President Joe Biden’s administration, which has provided crucial military and political support for the offensive, has urged Israel not to invade Rafah over fears it could cause a humanitarian catastrophe, concerns he reiterated in a phone call with Netanyahu on Sunday. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to visit Israel on his latest visit to the region, which began in Saudi Arabia on Monday.

The US, Egypt and Qatar are meanwhile pushing Israel and Hamas to accept an agreement they drafted that would free some of the hostages and bring about at least a temporary cease-fire. Hamas is still believed to be holding around 100 hostages and the remains of some 30 others after most of the rest were freed in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners last year.

Hamas has said it will not release the remaining hostages without an agreement to end the war. Netanyahu has rejected that demand, saying Israel will continue its offensive until Hamas is destroyed and all the hostages are returned.

 
ICJ rejects emergency measures over German arms exports to Israel

The International Court of Justice has ruled against issuing emergency measures over German arms sales to Israel as requested by Nicaragua, which had argued that there was a serious risk of genocide in Gaza amid Israel’s assault on the Palestinian territory.

Nicaragua also demanded that Germany resume funding to the UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, after Israel alleged that some of its employees were involved in the October 7 attacks that triggered the continuing fighting.

The ICJ ruled against the request in a 15-1 vote. “The circumstances are not such as to require the exercise of its power under article 41 of the statute to indicate provisional measures,” presiding Judge Nawaf Salam said on Tuesday.

However, the judges did not grant the German request to throw out the case altogether. The court will still hear arguments from both sides on the merits of Nicaragua’s case, which will likely take months.

Salam said that the court “remains deeply concerned about the catastrophic living conditions of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, in particular in view of the prolonged and widespread deprivation of food and other basic necessities to which they have been subjected.”

He added that the court “considers it particularly important to remind all states of their international obligations relating to the transfer of arms to parties to an armed conflict, in order to avoid the risk that such arms might be used” to violate international law.

In a two-day hearing in April, Nicaragua brought its case against Germany for allegedly facilitating genocide by being one of Israel’s biggest military suppliers.

Germany has denied the accusations, with its lawyer arguing that Nicaragua’s case was rushed, based on flimsy evidence and should be thrown out for lack of jurisdiction.



www.aljazeera.com

ICJ rejects emergency measures over German arms exports to Israel

The world court rules against issuing emergency order to stop German military exports in case brought by Nicaragua.
www.aljazeera.com www.aljazeera.com
 

Turkey to get involved in South Africa’s appeal against Israel at ICJ: FM​


Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Wednesday that Turkey would join in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

“Upon completion of the legal text of our work, we will submit the declaration of official intervention before the ICJ with the objective of implementing this political decision,” Fidan said in a joint press conference with Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi in Ankara.

“Turkey will continue to support the Palestinian people in all circumstances,” he said.

The ICJ ordered Israel in January to refrain from any acts that could fall under the Genocide Convention and to ensure its troops commit no genocidal acts against Palestinians, after South Africa accused Israel of state-led genocide in Gaza.

In January, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey was providing documents for the case at the ICJ, also known as the World Court.

Israel and its Western allies described the allegation as baseless. A final ruling in South Africa’s ICJ case in The Hague could take years.

 
ICC warns against 'threats'

The Hague-based ICC did not say if the comment related to its investigation into possible war crimes by Israel or Palestinian groups in Gaza and the West Bank.

The office of ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan said on X, formerly Twitter, that it was aware of "significant public interest" in its activities and said it sought to "engage constructively with all stakeholders."

But it added that the court's "independence and impartiality are undermined, however, when individuals threaten to retaliate against the court or against court personnel.

"Such threats, even not acted upon, may constitute an offence" against the ICC's "administration of justice", it warned, calling for an end to such activity.

Khan's office declined to say where the threats had come from and which investigation was concerned, when questioned by AFP.

US and Israeli media reports have suggested the ICC prosecutor could issue warrants against both Israeli politicians -- including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu -- and Hamas leaders.

Netanyahu said Wednesday on X that the ICC was "contemplating issuing arrest warrants against senior Israeli government and military officials as war criminals".

"This would be an outrage of historic proportions," he said, alleging that the ICC was "trying to put Israel in the dock".

The Axios news outlet has reported that Israel warned Washington it would take retaliatory steps against the Palestinian Authority that could lead to its collapse if the ICC issues arrest warrants.

US members of Congress had also warned of retaliation by Washington, Axios reported.

The United States says it also opposes the ICC probe into Israel's conduct in Gaza, arguing it has no jurisdiction.

'Oppose any threats'

Neither the United States nor Israel are members of the court.

The White House reiterated that position on Friday, while condemning any threats against the ICC.

"We obviously oppose any threats or intimidation to public officials, including ICC officials," White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told a briefing.

She said she would not comment on "what could be next and if we would weigh in if they were to move forward" with charges.

In 2020 the administration of then-president Donald Trump targeted the ICC with sanctions over its investigation into Afghanistan. The Biden administration lifted them.

One legal expert said the statement by the ICC's office of the prosecutor (OTP) was likely related to the "ongoing investigation in Palestine" given recent Israeli government statements about "threats to the Palestinian Authority in response to the potential issuance of arrest warrants".

Israel's reported retaliatory steps were aimed at the Palestinian authorities, "not at the ICC or the OTP", said Gabriele Chlevickaite, a researcher at the Hague-based Asser Institute for international law.

However, "some statements by Israeli officials could be interpreted as threatening the OTP officials indirectly and, or, interfering with the investigation," she told AFP.

This would not only be an offence under the court's founding Rome Statute "but a blatant disregard of the rule of law," Chlevickaite added.

The ICC opened a probe in 2021 into Israel, as well as Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups, over possible war crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Khan has said this investigation now "extends to the escalation of hostilities and violence since the (Hamas) attacks that took place on October 7, 2023".

The ICC is the world's only independent court set up to probe the gravest offences by individual suspects, including genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

It has previously issued warrants for national leaders -- most recently Russian President Vladimir Putin over the invasion of Ukraine.

SOURCE: AFP
 
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The Bald Eagle
Why USA fears Israel to the point of pandering?
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The Bald Eagle
The Bald Eagle
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