The World Court on Friday ordered that Israel immediately halt its assault on the city of Rafah in Gaza after a request from South Africa, which brought genocide charges against Israel, reports Joe Lauria.
By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News
Israel’s assault against Rafah must stop “immediately” to prevent genocide from being committed, the International Court of Justice ruled on Friday.
In an 18-page legally binding ruling, it said:
“The Court considers that, in conformity with its obligations under the Genocide Convention, 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.”
Israel must also allow “unimpeded access” to “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 15 judge court ruled in a 13-2 decision.
The ICJ said it also “considers that the catastrophic situation in Gaza confirms the need for the immediate and effective implementation of the measures indicated” by its rulings of Jan. 26 and March 28, which ordered Israel to “take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts” of genocide.
The court based its ruling, it said, on statements from senior United Nations officials who have “consistently underscored the immense risks associated with a military offensive in Rafah.”
The spokesperson of the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) for instance warned on May 3 that “an assault on Rafah would put ‘hundreds of thousands of people . . . at imminent risk of death’ and would severely impact the humanitarian operation in the entire Gaza Strip, which is run primarily out of Rafah,” the ruling said.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) indicated on May 6 that about half of the approximately 1.2 million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah were children, and “warned that military operations therein would result in ‘the few remaining basic services and infrastructure they need to survive being totally destroyed.’ There is ‘nowhere safe to go’ for the 600,000 children of Rafah.'”
U.N. sources indicate that the “above-mentioned risks have started to materialize and will intensify even further if the operation continues,” the ICJ ruled.
South African delegation at the ICJ on Friday. (ICJ)
The court said it was “not convinced that the evacuation efforts and related measures that Israel affirms to have undertaken to enhance the security of civilians in the Gaza Strip” are “sufficient to alleviate the immense risk to which the Palestinian population is exposed as a result of the military offensive in Rafah.”
Israel did not provide sufficient information about the safety of the population during evacuation nor about conditions for 800,000 Palestinians having been sent to the Al-Mawasi area, the court said. “Consequently, the Court is of the view that Israel has not sufficiently addressed and dispelled the concerns raised by its military offensive in Rafah,” the court concluded.
It said the Rafah offensive could entail a “further risk of irreparable prejudice to the plausible rights claimed by South Africa” and that there is “urgency, in the sense that there exists a real and imminent risk that such prejudice will be caused before the Court gives its final decision” about whether Israel is committing genocide.
Friday’s ruling came after a May 10 submission from South Africa that “Israel shall immediately withdraw and cease its military offensive in the Rafah Governorate.”
The South African request also said Israel must allow humanitarian aid, as well as human rights investigators and journalists into Gaza in “order to assess and record conditions on the ground in Gaza and enable the effective preservation and retention of evidence.”
After oral arguments on May 17, South Africa further demanded that Israel “cease its military operations in the Gaza Strip, including in the Rafah Governorate, and withdraw from the Rafah Crossing and immediately, totally and unconditionally withdraw the Israeli army from the entirety of the Gaza Strip.”
A Test of Democracy
Lawyers representing Israel listen to court’s ruling on Friday. (ICJ)
The ICJ ruling on Friday is just one more legal move against Israel, which was unthinkable before its current assault on Gaza.
On Monday, Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, asked for arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant as well as three Hamas leaders.
Khan had appeared extremely reluctant to confront the United States and other Western governments by issuing such a bold request. That he did is an indication of the extent of public and political pressure that is being exerted around the world on authorities to act against Israel to stop it from committing ongoing genocide.
Whether that public pressure, including by university students in the U.S. and around the world, succeeds is a real test of how much democracy is left in Western societies.
Background to the Case
South Africa first brought its case of genocide against Israel to the ICJ on Dec. 29 last year.
On Jan. 26, the court ruled Israel is plausibly committing genocide in Gaza. It said:
“The State of Israel shall, in accordance with its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, in relation to Palestinians in Gaza, take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts within the scope of Article II of this Convention, in particular:
(a) killing members of the group;
(b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part … “
After a South African request for further provisional measures on March 6, the ICJ ruled on March 28:
“The State of Israel shall, in conformity with its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, and in view of the worsening conditions of life faced by Palestinians in Gaza, in particular the spread of famine and starvation …
Ensure with immediate effect that its military does not commit acts which constitute a violation of any of the rights of the Palestinians in Gaza as a protected group under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, including by preventing, through any action, the delivery of urgently needed humanitarian assistance.”
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette, the London Daily Mail and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. He is the author of two books, A Political Odyssey, with Sen. Mike Gravel, foreword by Daniel Ellsberg; and How I Lost By Hillary Clinton, foreword by Julian Assange. He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @unjoe
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Presumably, no one expects Israel to comply with the court’s ruling. So I agree with Mr. Mahé – kick Israel out and replace them with the Palestinians. I also agree that the genociders should all be kicked out. Unfortunately, the US, UK, and France are all permanent members of the UNSC and have the power of the veto.
Our United States Knesset, formerly known as the US Congress, will surely have a seizure over this action. The Pro Defamation League, commonly known as the ADL, will go into defamation overdrive over this decision on any who agree with it. It will be baton swinging time in the US wherever protesters gather in support of this ICJ order. Jews who support this order will again be inside the Zionists crosshairs. Such is 2024 America. Is this what our fallen soldiers fought to uphold? Thanks Joe.
Apply the same hard lines to the Zionists, the same hard lines they are applying to Palestinians. Expelling israel from the UN won’t make a bit of difference. SHUN israel and break off all diplomatic relations…those who have the balls to do this.
Nethanyu will carry on with his genocide regardless. The only way one can stop him is a invasion of Israel by several countries armed forces.
“There”s the ruling, and what does Israel do in response to this order from the ICJ to halt the operation, the assault on Rafah? it escalates it. As we’re speaking it’s engaged in outright carpet bombing, of Rafah.”
-Aaron Mate’
“Yes, but they’re our bastards-The Grayzone live”
6 hours ago
No redlines.
At this point you have to ask yourself, who is going to militarily intervene on the behalf of the innocent Palestinians. If anyone ever needed some divine intervention.
Excellent analysis from Joe Lauria:
“Khan had appeared extremely reluctant to confront the United States and other Western governments by issuing such a bold request [the ICC warrants]. That he did is an indication of the extent of public and political pressure that is being exerted around the world on authorities to act against Israel to stop it from committing ongoing genocide.
“Whether that public pressure, including by university students in the U.S. and around the world, succeeds is a real test of how much democracy is left in Western societies.”
Meaningful remedial action by the Court in the event of Israeli refusal to comply with its rulings could plausibly sidestep the Security Council by expelling Israel from the United Nations, recognizing Palestine as a member, and even expelling the United States, the United Kingdom and France from the Security Council as accesories to genocide. It could, but that would be the shock of shocks, making a reality of the law purported created at Nuremburg following the second war to end all wars.
Guillermo: I agree with you. It is high time that Israel should have been expelled from the UN. With this recent order for Israel to stop Rafah attack–if Israel does not comply and the UN does not expel Israel, then we have to ask ourselves, “What is the use of the UN in preserving peace?
Any words out of the mouths of spokespeople for the South African Jewish Board of Deputies is straight from the horses mouth hypocrisy; as regards anything to do with Apartheid or Democracy or anything else of a political nature, in the Israeli state, as well as, and more especially, in the ‘New’ South Africa!
EM,
What we hear is not hypocrisy— heard are voices of change and self-examination.
Also, expulsion is not the answer — legal reprimands within the bounds of the universal community [UN] might bring about a durable change — as has public outcry and demonstrations.
I apologize, if I’ve stepped on your toes!
Please clarify and enlighten me as to how the term ‘expulsion’ applies to my comment about the SAJBoD.
I’ll just say, I agree: expulsion of any indigenous people from their homesteads, is politically undemocratic; not to mention, untenable, in the long run, as we are witnessing in ‘reel’ time in Palestine, unless of course the Israelis turn out to be more savagely barbaric than the erstwhile British colonialists globally.
Unfortunately, the history, expulsion and homicidal killings of the indigenous ‘Americans’, by expatriate British, is not too easily accessible in history texts.
Please see the article: Education, by Jim Mamer, on Scheerpost