The Daily Populous Saturday May 25th, 2024 night edition
Authored by apnews.com and submitted by accidentaljurist

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The United Nations’ top court ordered Israel on Friday to immediately halt its military offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, but stopped short of ordering a cease-fire for the enclave. Although Israel is unlikely to comply with the order, it will ratchet up the pressure on the increasingly isolated country.

Criticism of Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza has been growing, particularly since it turned its focus to Rafah. This week alone, three European countries announced they would recognize a Palestinian state, and the chief prosecutor for another international court requested arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, along with Hamas officials.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also under some pressure at home to end the war, which was triggered when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel, killing 1,200 people, most civilians, and taking roughly 250 hostage. Thousands of Israelis have joined weekly demonstrations calling on the government to reach a deal to bring the hostages home, fearing time is running out.

“The charges of genocide brought by South Africa against Israel at the International Court of Justice in the Hague are false, outrageous and morally repugnant,” Netanyahu’s government said in response to the ruling, maintaining its position that the military hasn’t and won’t target civilians.

South Africa was able to bring its case because it and Israel are signatories to the U.N.'s Genocide Convention, which includes a clause allowing the court to settle disputes over it.

Although the ruling is a blow to Israel’s international standing, the court doesn’t have a police force to enforce its orders. In another case on its docket, Russia has ignored the court’s 2022 order to halt its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The sharply focused decision sent a three-pronged message to Israel, ordering a halt to the Rafah offensive, access to Gaza for war crimes investigators, and a big and immediate increase of humanitarian aid to the region, parts of which are enduring famine.

Rafah is in the southernmost part of the Gaza Strip, on the border with Egypt, and over 1 million people sought refuge there in recent months after fleeing fighting elsewhere, with many of them living in teeming tent camps. Israel has been vowing for months to invade Rafah, saying it was Hamas’ last major stronghold, even as several allies warned that an all-out assault would spell disaster.

Israel started issuing evacuation orders about two weeks ago as it began operations on the edge of the city. Since then, the army says an estimated 1 million people have left as forces press deeper inside.

Rafah is also home to a critical crossing for aid, and the U.N. says the flow of aid reaching it has plunged since the incursion began, though commercial trucking has continued to enter Gaza.

The court ordered Israel to keep the Rafah crossing open, saying “the humanitarian situation is now to be characterized as disastrous.”

“This legally binding and very specific ruling leaves Israel with very little wiggle room,” said Reed Brody, a veteran human rights lawyer and prosecutor.

Benny Gantz, a popular centrist member of Netanyahu’s war cabinet, appeared to indicate that Israel would not change its course regarding Rafah.

“The State of Israel is committed to continue fighting to return its hostages and promise the security of its citizens — wherever and whenever necessary — including in Rafah,” he said.

“We will continue operating in accordance with international law wherever we might operate, while safeguarding to the best extent possible the civilian population. Not because of the ICJ, but because of who we are and the values we stand for.”

Balkees Jarrah, associate international justice director at Human Rights Watch, said the court’s order underscored the perilous situation of Palestinians in Gaza, but warned that it could be ignored if the international community doesn’t use whatever leverage it can on Israel.

“The ICJ’s decision opens up the possibility for relief, but only if governments use their leverage, including through arms embargoes and targeted sanctions, to press Israel to urgently enforce the court’s measures,” Jarrah said.

The court’s president, Nawaf Salam, read out the ruling as a small group of pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrated outside.

Fears the court expressed earlier this year about an operation in Rafah have “materialized,” the ruling said, and Israel must “immediately halt its military offensive” in the city and anything else that might result in conditions that could cause the “physical destruction in whole or in part” of Palestinians there.

But the ruling didn’t call for a full cease-fire throughout Gaza, as South Africa, which has historic ties to the Palestinian people and brought the case, requested last week.

South Africa’s foreign minister, Naledi Pandor, said the country’s allegation that a genocide is underway is getting “stronger and stronger by the day.”

“We are really pleased that the court has given very serious consideration to the matters that we put before it and has affirmed that an urgent decision is needed from the court to pause this onslaught against innocent Palestinian people,” she told South African state broadcaster SABC, adding that it’s now up to the U.N. Security Council to determine how to protect the Palestinians.

The cease-fire request is part of a case accusing Israel of committing genocide during its Gaza campaign. Israel vehemently denies the allegations. The case will take years to resolve, but South Africa wants interim orders to protect Palestinians while the legal wrangling continues.

The court ruled Friday that Israel must ensure access for any fact-finding or investigative mission sent by the U.N. to investigate the genocide allegations.

At public hearings last week at the International Court of Justice, South Africa’s ambassador to the Netherlands, Vusimuzi Madonsela, urged the panel of 15 international judges to order Israel to “totally and unconditionally withdraw” from the Gaza Strip.

The court has already found that Israel’s military operations pose a “real and imminent risk” to the Palestinian people.

Israel’s offensive has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians. The operation has obliterated entire neighborhoods, sent hundreds of thousands of people fleeing their homes, and pushed parts of the territory into famine.

“This may well be the last chance for the court to act,” Irish lawyer Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh, who is part of South Africa’s legal team, told judges last week.

In January, ICJ judges ordered Israel to do all it could to prevent death, destruction and any acts of genocide in Gaza, but the panel stopped short of ordering an end to the military offensive. In a second order in March, the court said Israel must take measures to improve the humanitarian situation.

The ICJ rules in disputes between nations. A few kilometers (miles) away, the International Criminal Court files charges against individuals it considers most responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

On Monday, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, said he has asked ICC judges to approve arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and three top Hamas leaders — Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh — of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip and Israel.

This story was updated to correct that the International Criminal Court is not a U.N. court.

Associated Press reporters Gerald Imray in Cape Town, South Africa, and Julia Frankel in Jerusalem contributed. ___

Find more AP coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

FrankfurtersGhost on May 24th, 2024 at 15:55 UTC »

So to be clear, the Court:

1) Decided that Israel must halt its Rafah offensive after evacuating over 1 million civilians out of the way to save their lives.

2) Insisted Israel open the Rafah crossing, which was closed by Egypt, which refuses to reopen it.

3) Insisted Israel stop its operation based in part on the claims by UNRWA, an agency with a long history of infiltration by Hamas and friendliness to it. Of course, it didn’t address that food aid truckloads now are 400% above what they were pre-war, and that studies have found an average of 3,000 calories entering per person per day from January through April (over 50% more than the recommended amount set by the UN itself). Aid has only gone up since then, meaning the amount is likely even higher.

4) Did all this with a chief judge who is a former Lebanese foreign minister but didn’t recuse himself from a case involving a state his country is at war with, who he repeatedly libeled as Foreign Minister.

5) Provided no alternative way for Israel to defeat Hamas in its last stronghold, basically telling Israel that it can’t win the war even if it floods Gaza with aid and evacuates civilians so Hamas can’t use them as shields.

6) Threw in a reminder that Hamas should release hostages, which I’m sure they’ll follow now that they’ve gotten an order telling Israel to stop putting military pressure on them.

7) Somehow now decided to impose on Israel not only the obligation not to win the war, but also to provide aid to Palestinian civilians even more. Despite the massive aid already being sent in. Which is just well beyond any war in history. This standard, applied to any other war ever, would make war impossible against terrorist groups. It is absurd.

Yeah, it’s a true wonder why Israel would ignore this insane order.

Edit: Looks like two judges who voted for this judgment and two who voted against all have said that this doesn't actually require Israel to end the Rafah operation. The ambiguity clearly shows media outlets misunderstanding this very strangely vague phrase. The ICJ seems to be playing politics and made an intentionally obscure ruling with intentionally vague language. Israel will likely ignore the ruling given this ambiguity.

Chanan-Ben-Zev on May 24th, 2024 at 15:52 UTC »

Yeah there's just no way Israel will stop. Even the Biden admin is now on board with the Rafa op. (see also this).

What will happen despite the Court is as follows:

Israel will complete the Rafah op over public American complaints and private American endorsement

Israel will identify more Egyptian smuggling tunnels and Egypt will continue to be sidelined by the US

Israel will perform some minor clearing up across the whole of Gaza and declare the Gaza war "effectively accomplished" once Sinwar and the last of the hostages (or their corpses) are located.

Israel, the US, and the KSA will engage in negotiations over the KSA-USA military treaty, KSA-Israel normalization, and a KSA-backed reatructuring of the Palestinian Authority as part of a "permanent step" towards the formation of a Palestinian state (hopefully after a decade or so of occupation, rebuilding, and a dramatic reeducation of the Palestinians)

the international community (read: China, Russia, Iran, and their supporters in the UN) and Hamas supporters worldwide will be angry

whats_a_quasar on May 24th, 2024 at 14:42 UTC »

I urge people to at least skim the actual court opinion and the dissents before jumping to your default position on the conflict. The vote was 13-2, and the text of the order is here:

https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20240524-ord-01-00-en.pdf

Ehud Aharon Barak's dissent is here:

https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20240524-ord-01-05-en.pdf

The ICJ website additionally has links to the second judge's dissent and additional declarations by three of the judges in favor.

Edit: Fixed wrong first name