A man carries a crying child amid rubble of a building destroyed in an Israeli air strike in Gaza City. Photo: Mohammed Abed/AFP.
Israel escalated its attacks on civilians throughout the Gaza Strip, ignoring the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling ordering it to cease its military operation in Rafah on the southern border of the enclave.
On Friday, May 24, the ICJ ordered Israel to halt its military offensive in Rafah as part of the ongoing genocide case filed by South Africa earlier this year.
The top UN court said that the current situation entails further risks of “irreparable damage” to the rights of Palestinians in Gaza and that conditions have been met for new emergency measures.
“[Israel must] immediately halt its military offensive, and any other action in the Rafah Governorate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part,” ICJ President Nawaf Salam said on May 24.
He also ordered Tel Aviv to “maintain open the Rafah crossing for unhindered provision at scale of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance” and to “take effective measures to ensure the unimpeded access to the Gaza Strip of any commission of inquiry, fact-finding mission or other investigative body mandated by competent organs of the United Nations to investigate allegations of genocide.”
The ICJ also ordered Israeli officials to “submit a report to the Court on all measures taken to give effect to this Order, within one month as from the date of this Order.”
The ruling was a provisional measure to halt Israeli military action in Rafah, which has killed hundreds of Palestinians and displaced hundreds of thousands who had already been displaced by Israeli bombing in the north of the Strip.
Palestinian resistance movement Hamas commented on the ruling, highlighting that Tel Aviv continues to commit massacres across the Gaza Strip and urged the ICJ to issue an order for Israel to stop all its operations in the besieged enclave, not just in Rafah.
“What is happening in Jabalia and other governorates of the Strip is no less criminal and dangerous than what is happening in Rafah,” the Hamas siad in a statement.
“We call on the international community and the United Nations to pressure the occupation to immediately comply with this decision and to seriously and genuinely proceed in translating all UN resolutions that force the zionist occupation army to stop the genocide it has been committing against our people for more than seven months,” the statement demanded.
For its part, South Africa welcomed Friday’s ruling and urged UN member states to back it.
“I believe it’s a much stronger, in terms of wording, set of provisional measures, very clear call for a cessation,” Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor told South African public broadcaster SABC.
Following the ICJ session, Israeli media reported that Prime Minister Netanyahu convened an emergency meeting on Friday, with Foreign Minister Israel Katz, war cabinet minister and opposition leader Benny Gantz, and the government’s judicial advisor.
After the meeting, Netanyahu denied the allegations in the case brought by South Africa, claiming that South Africa’s claims were “false, outrageous, and morally repugnant.”
He claimed operations in Rafah would not be conducted in a way that “may inflict on the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”
However, Israeli warplanes launched violent and unprecedented raids on Rafah just moments after the ICJ issued its order to halt the military operation against the city, Lebanese outlet Al-Mayadeen reported.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health reported on Friday, May 24, that Israeli forces committed six massacres against families in Gaza, killing 57 and injuring 93, bringing the number of dead since the start of the war in October to 35,857.
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The ministry added that several victims were still under the rubble and on the roads, where ambulances and civil defense crews were unable to reach them.
Al-Mayadeen reported that air strikes targeted the Al-Shaboura camp in the center of Rafah, while artillery targeted multiple areas, including near two hospitals, the Martyr Abu Youssef Al-Najjar Hospital and the Kuwait Specialized Hospital in central Rafah, as well as the Khirbet Al-Adas, Al-Madkha Street, and Al-Geneina neighborhoods.
Israeli warplanes also struck the Al-Mawasi area in the city of Khan Yunis, which led to a number of dead and wounded. Israel had designated the Al-Mawasi area as a safe zone where those sheltering in Rafah should flee ahead of the Rafah assault, which began two weeks ago.
In central Gaza, civil defense crews recovered the bodies of eight Palestinians, including children and women, from a house belonging to the Al-Naji family, which was bombed by Israeli warplanes on Jaffa Street behind the Hamza Mosque, east of Gaza City.
An Israeli air strike targeted the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood southeast of Gaza City.
According to Amnesty International, any refusal to halt operations by Israel in Rafah following the ICJ order means it is committing genocide.
“With this order, the International Court of Justice (ICJ)—the UN’s principal court—has made it crystal clear: the Israeli authorities must completely halt military operations in Rafah, as any ongoing military action could constitute an underlying act of genocide,” a statement issued by the rights group said.
“Unequivocally, the ground incursion and the associated mass forced displacement it has caused pose further irreparable risk to the rights of the Palestinian people protected under the Genocide Convention and further threaten their physical destruction in whole or in part,” the Amnesty International pointed out.
(The Cradle) with Orinoco Tribune content
