The United Nations\u2019 top court on Friday said Israel must prevent genocidal acts in Gaza and facilitate \u201curgently needed\u201d humanitarian aid into the besieged territory, handing down rulings in a case that has drawn global attention.<\/p>\n
The court urged Israel to refrain from any possible genocidal acts as it presses its military operation in the Gaza Strip, but stopped short of ordering a ceasefire.<\/p>\n
Israel must take \u201cimmediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians,\u201d the court said.<\/p>\n
At this stage, the ICJ was not considering whether Israel was actually committing genocide in Gaza \u2014 that process would take several years.<\/p>\n
But the court warned Israel to \u201ctake all measures in its power to prevent\u201d acts that could fall under the UN Genocide Convention, set up in 1948 as the world reeled from the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust.<\/p>\n
It also said Israel should \u201cprevent and punish\u201d any incitement to genocide.<\/p>\n
The case was brought by South Africa, which has accused Israel of breaching the UN Genocide Convention.<\/p>\n
Over two days of hearings earlier this month in the gilded hall of the Peace Palace, where the ICJ sits, lawyers from both sides battled it over the interpretation of this Convention.<\/p>\n
South Africa accused Israel of \u201cgenocidal\u201d acts that were intended to cause the \u201cdestruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group.\u201d<\/p>\n
It urged the court to order Israel to \u201cimmediately suspend\u201d its military operations in Gaza and allow humanitarian aid to reach the civiilians there.<\/p>\n
Israel dismissed the case as a \u201cgrossly distorted story\u201d and said that if any genocidal acts had been carried out, they had been executed against Israel during the October 7 Hamas attacks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat Israel seeks by operating in Gaza is not to destroy a people, but to protect a people, its people, who are under attack on multiple fronts,\u201d said Tal Becker, Israel\u2019s top lawyer.<\/p>\n
The question now is whether the court\u2019s rulings will be obeyed.<\/p>\n
Although its rulings are legally binding, it has no mechanism to enforce them and they are sometimes completely ignored \u2014 it has ordered Russia to stop its invasion of Ukraine for example.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already hinted Israel would not abide by any ruling saying \u201cno one will stop us\u201d, not even a verdict in The Hague.<\/p>\n
But experts believe that aside from the significant symbolic impact of the ruling, there could be tangible consequences on the ground.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt makes it much harder for other states to continue to support Israel in the face of a neutral third party finding there is a risk of genocide,\u201d said Juliette McIntyre, international law expert from the University of South Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cStates may withdraw military or other support for Israel in order to avoid this,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
The October 7 Hamas attack resulted in the death of around 1,140 people in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.<\/p>\n
At least 26,083 Palestinians, around 70 percent of them women, young children and adolescents, have been killed in the Gaza Strip in Israeli bombardments and ground offensive since then, according to the Hamas government\u2019s health ministry.<\/p>\n
AFP<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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