The UN’s highest court on Friday called on Israel to do everything possible to prevent any act of “genocide” in the Gaza Strip and to allow humanitarian aid in, issuing a long-awaited decision.
The court called on Israel to refrain from any possible genocidal acts as it continues its military operation in the Gaza Strip, but did not mention a ceasefire.
Israel must take “immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of basic services and humanitarian assistance that the Palestinians urgently need to address the adverse living conditions faced by the Palestinians,” the court ruled.
At this point, the ICJ is not ruling on whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. This part of the procedure can take years.
But the court called on Israel to “take all measures in its power to prevent” acts that could fall under the United Nations Genocide Convention, established in 1948 after the Holocaust.
PHOTO REMKO DE WAAL, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
South Africa took the matter to the ICJ, arguing that Israel was violating the United Nations Convention on Genocide, signed in 1948 following the Holocaust.
She also said Israel should “prevent and punish” any incitement to genocide.
The proceedings were brought by South Africa, which claims Israel is violating the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention, established in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust.
Hamas, considered a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel in particular, committed Thursday to respecting a ceasefire if it was demanded by this court, but on condition that Israel also complies with it.
The Israeli government criticizes this legal procedure.
At the same time, Qatar, Egypt and the United States are trying to mediate to reach a new truce, including the release of Palestinian hostages and prisoners.
According to the American daily Washington Post and the news site Axios, CIA chief William Burns will travel to Europe to meet his Israeli, Egyptian and Qatari prime minister counterparts in the hope of negotiating an agreement.
“Human tide”
Several residents interviewed in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip, say they are grateful to South Africa. “I hope the court decides to convict Israel and ends the war […]but I fear that in the end it will all be useless,” says Mohammed Rabia, a 36-year-old man displaced from al-Shati camp.
In southern Gaza, thousands of civilians have fled in recent days from the large city of Khan Younes, relentlessly shelled by Israel.
In Rafah, a few kilometers further south, tens of thousands of displaced people are crowded together in desperate conditions, massed in a very small area against the closed border with Egypt, according to an AFP journalist.
PHOTO IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA, REUTERS
In Rafah, a few kilometers further south, tens of thousands of displaced people are crowded together in desperate conditions.
Many now fear that Israeli soldiers will continue their offensive into this city.
“A human tide is forced to flee Khan Younes to find itself at the border with Egypt,” said the commissioner general of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, referring to “a search endless security” for the population, trapped in the small territory besieged since October 9 by Israel.
According to the Hamas Ministry of Health, 183 people were killed in 24 hours in Gaza, while intense fighting raged near the Nasser hospital in Khan Younes, one of the largest in the territory.
The Palestinian Red Crescent announced that tank fire was targeting the area around the besieged Al-Amal hospital, also in Khan Younes.
On Wednesday, tank fire against an UNRWA shelter housing tens of thousands of displaced people left 13 people dead in Khan Younes, according to this agency.
PHOTO IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA, REUTERS
Civilians fleeing Khan Younes
After the United States, France “condemned” these shootings. Germany declared itself “extremely concerned” by the “desperate situation” of civilians in Khan Yunis.
“We tried to get out, but when I looked out, I saw the tanks firing. How could we get out? », Testified on his hospital bed Ahmad Katra, a Palestinian injured by these shots.
“They said it was a safe place, but in the end they beat us in a UN facility,” he added.
According to the United Nations, the Israeli army ordered the evacuation of this shelter before 5 p.m. Friday, which the army denied.
She claims to have “surrounded” Khan Younes, the hometown of Yahya Sinouar, the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, considered the architect of the October 7 attack.
This attack led to the death of more than 1,140 people in Israel, mainly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures.
Some 250 people were kidnapped during the attack and taken to Gaza, including around 100 released at the end of November during a truce in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
In response, Israel vowed to “annihilate” Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007, and launched a vast military operation which left 26,083 people dead, the vast majority of them women, children and adolescents, according to the Ministry of Health. of the Islamist movement.
In the territory plunged into a humanitarian disaster, around 1.7 million Palestinians, out of a total of 2.4 million inhabitants, have fled their homes.