THE HAGUE (AP) — The United Nations’ highest court opens two days of hearings Thursday on a request from South Africa to pressure Israel to end its military operation in the city of Rafah, in southern Gaza, where more than half of Gaza’s population has sought refuge. shelter.
This is the fourth time South Africa has requested emergency measures from the International Court of Justice since the country launched proceedings alleging that Israel’s military action in its war against Hamas in Gaza amounts to has genocide.
According to the latest requestthe Hague court’s previous preliminary orders were not sufficient to deal with “a brutal military attack on the only remaining refuge for the people of Gaza.”
Israel has presented Rafah as the militant group’s last bastion, ignoring warnings from the United States and other allies that any major operation there would be catastrophic for civilians.
South Africa asked the court to order Israel to withdraw from Rafah; take steps to ensure unhindered access to UN officials, humanitarian organizations and journalists in the Gaza Strip; and to report within one week on how it responds to these requests.
During the hearings at the beginning of the year, Israel strongly denied committing genocide in Gaza and said he was doing everything he could to spare civilians and was only targeting Hamas militants. He says Hamas’s tactic of establishing itself in civilian areas makes it difficult to avoid civilian casualties.
In January, judges ordered Israel to do everything possible to prevent death, destruction and other danger. acts of genocide in Gaza, but the panel did not order an end to the military offensive that has ravaged the Palestinian enclave.
In a second order issued in March, the court said Israel must take steps to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, including opening more land crossings to allow the entry of food, water, fuel and other supplies.
Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been displaced since the fighting began.
The war began with a Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, in which Palestinian militants killed around 1,200 people and took around 250 hostages. Gaza’s health ministry says more than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed during the war, without distinguishing between civilians and combatants.
South Africa has initiated proceedings in December 2023 and sees the legal campaign as rooted in the problems at the heart of its identity. Its ruling party, the African National Congress, has long compared Israel’s policies in Gaza and the occupied West Bank to its own history under white-minority apartheid rule, which restricted most blacks to “homelands.” “. Apartheid ended in 1994.
On Sunday, Egypt announced its intention to join the deal. The Foreign Ministry said Israeli military actions “constitute a blatant violation of international law, humanitarian law and the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 concerning the protection of civilians in time of war.”
Several countries have also indicated their intention to intervene, but so far only Libya, Nicaragua and Colombia have filed formal requests to do so.
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