The World Court ordered Israel on Friday to prevent acts of genocide against Palestinians and do more to help civilians, but the World Court was silent on the ceasefire order requested by the South African defendant.
While the ruling denied Palestinian hopes of a binding order to halt the war in Gaza, it represented a legal setback for Israel, which had hoped to throw out a case brought under the genocide convention established in the ashes of the World War Two Holocaust that targeted European Jews.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) found there was a case to be heard about whether Palestinian rights were being denied in a war it said was causing grievous humanitarian harm. It also called for Palestinian armed groups to release hostages captured in the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel that precipitated the conflict.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said the decision was a welcome reminder "no state is above the law". Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters it would contribute to "isolating the occupation and exposing its crimes in Gaza".
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the ICJ's decision not to order a ceasefire, but rejected the claim of genocide as "outrageous" and said Israel would continue to defend itself.
REPORT BACK IN A MONTH
Israel had sought to have the case thrown out when South Africa brought it to the ICJ, also known as the World Court, this month under the legal principle that genocide is such a grave crime that all countries are duty-bound to prevent it.
Pretoria accused Israel of state-led genocide in its offensive, begun after Hamas militants stormed into Israel killing 1,200 and kidnapping more than 240.
It asked the court to grant emergency measures to halt the fighting, which Palestinian officials say has killed more than 26,000 Palestinians and displaced the majority of the population in a more than three-month campaign of intensive bombardment.
The ICJ judges ordered Israel to take all measures within its power to prevent its troops from committing genocide, punish acts of incitement, take steps to improve the humanitarian situation and report back on its progress in a month.
It did not decide the merits of the genocide allegations, which could take years. Although the ruling cannot be appealed, the court has no mechanism to enforce its decision.
In reading out the decision, ICJ President Judge Joan Donoghue described the plight of Palestinians in Gaza, singling out harm to children and quoting detailed descriptions of the humanitarian emergency from U.N. officials.
This, she said, justified the court's decision to take emergency action to prevent irreparable harm. She also read out calls from Israeli officials for a harsh campaign, which she said justified the court's order to Israel to punish people guilty of incitement.
Israel called South Africa's allegations false and "grossly distorted". It says it has acted in self defence against a foe that attacked first, and goes to great lengths to protect civilians, blaming Hamas for operating among them, which the fighters deny.
South Africa called the court order a "decisive victory" for international rule of law and both it and the European Union said Israel must implement it immediately and in full.
The United States noted the ruling did not make a finding about genocide and said it aligned with the U.S. view that Israel had the right to take action in accordance with international law to prevent any repeat of the Oct. 7 attacks.
ASSAULT ON KHAN YOUNIS
On the ground in Gaza, the heaviest fighting in weeks is now taking place in crowded areas jammed with hundreds of thousands of people who fled from earlier fighting elsewhere.
Palestinians sheltering in southern Gaza said they felt let down by the lack of a ceasefire order from the court, but also hopeful the ruling would bring accountability.
"What happened was a victory," said Mustafa Ibrahim, a human rights activist. In Israel, Jonathan Dekel-Chen, whose son is being held hostage in Gaza, said he was encouraged by the ICJ's call for the release of the captives, which he said reflected a largely neglected point that the Hamas assault sparked the war.
The militants released a video on Friday featuring three female hostages calling for an end to the conflict. Israel has said such videos amount to psychological abuse.
Residents said Israeli forces blew up buildings and houses in the western part of the city as gun battles raged. Palestinians say Israel has hampered efforts to rescue the dead and wounded as well as blockading hospitals, which Israel denies, blaming Hamas fighters for operating near them.
Hezbollah announced that four of its fighters were killed in an Israeli strike on southern Lebanon late on Friday. The group has been exchanging fire with Israeli since it launched rockets across Lebanon's southern border on Oct. 8 in support of its ally Hamas.
It said on Friday that it had fired rockets at Israeli military targets nine times during the day, including the Burkan (Volcano), which carry hundreds of kilograms of explosives.
Not a ‘goodwill gesture’
The US provides at least $3.8bn in military aid to Israel annually. For years, rights advocates and a growing number of US lawmakers have called on Washington to condition that assistance on Israel’s human rights record and international law.
The US government also twice bypassed Congress to provide thousands of artillery shells to the country as it continued to bombard Gaza. Israeli attacks have killed more than 26,000 Palestinians to date and decimated the coastal territory.
Yet, despite reports and investigations that showed US weapons were used in Israeli bombings that killed Palestinian civilians in Gaza, attempts to pressure Washington to end the transfers or determine whether the arms are being deployed in rights abuses have failed.
“We have been telling the Biden administration that this is not just a goodwill gesture” to end the transfer of weapons to Israel, said DAWN’s Jarrar, explaining that Washington has obligations under international and US law.
“This is something that they have to think about very seriously because the United States as a government is implicated in these war crimes, and US officials are also implicated,” Jarrar said. “They have to take today’s order [from the ICJ] very seriously.
But on Friday, Yasmine Ahmed, the UK director at HRW, said the ICJ’s provisional order should push the UK government to “halt arms exports to Israel with immediate effect”. “There is NO question,” she wrote on social media.
There is NO question. In light of the provisional measures judgment @CIJ_ICJ, the 🇬🇧 must halt arms exports to Israel with immediate effect @David_Cameron @KemiBadenoch
— Yasmine Ahmed (@YasmineAhmed001) January 26, 2024
The Court found a plausible risk of genocide & the UK has an obligation to prevent genocide & not be complicit
“The Court found a plausible risk of genocide & the UK has an obligation to prevent genocide & not be complicit.”
That obligation stems from the UN’s 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide — commonly known as the Genocide Convention. The US, the UK and Canada are among 153 countries that are parties to the treaty.
It confirms “that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish”.
South Africa invoked this “obligation to prevent genocide” when it brought its case to the ICJ, and the court on Friday recognised that it had standing under the Genocide Convention. The treaty also states that “complicity in genocide” is punishable.
“If you’re supplying arms to a country where you know the arms may be used for criminal purposes, then you may become complicit in those crimes,” said Geoffrey Nice, a UK lawyer who led the prosecution of Slobodan Milosevic at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
“And it’s very hard not to become complicit after a certain stage of knowing is reached and after a certain stage of conduct continues,” Nice told Al Jazeera in a television interview on Friday.
“Arms suppliers would have to be very, very careful – and some may simply decide it’s not worth the risk of being brought into a humiliating, serious, possible investigation for crime.”
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