ICJ set to rule on halting Israeli offensive in Gaza
Published on: Saturday, May 25, 2024
By: AFP
Security forces pull a protestor as they disperse a demonstrations by Israeli left-wing activists against the ongoing war in Gaza, in front of the US consulate in Jerusalem.
GAZA STRIP: Israeli forces carried out strikes on Gaza and battled militants on the ground Friday, as the UN’s top court was due to rule on a plea to halt the military offensive.
As the hostilities continued, the International Court of Justice is set to rule Friday on a plea to halt the Israeli military offensive in Gaza over accusations of “genocide”.
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The ICJ, whose orders are legally binding but lack direct enforcement mechanisms, stopped short of ordering a ceasefire in an interim ruling in January but instructed Israel to do everything possible to prevent genocidal acts.
South Africa, which filed the case later formally supported by Israel-Hamas mediator Egypt, argued the ongoing Israeli operation in Rafah should compel the UN court to issue fresh emergency orders.
The case, which Israel says should be dismissed, could add to mounting international pressure for a truce and hostage release more than seven months into the war.
Meanwhile, arrest warrants related to the war are pending at the International Criminal Court, and three European countries said they would formally recognise a Palestinian state on Tuesday.
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Israel’s top diplomat on Friday singled out remarks by the Spanish government’s number three Yolanda Diaz, who had vowed to push for freedom “from the river to the sea”—a slogan critics view a call for the elimination of Israel.
Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a post on X he had decided to “prohibit the Spanish consulate in Jerusalem from providing services to Palestinians from the West Bank”, a territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
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It was not immediately clear how Israel would carry out the threat, and the foreign ministry did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment.
In northern Gaza’s Jabalia area, where urban combat has flared again months after the start of Israeli operations there, the military said the bodies of three hostages had been retrieved in an operation during the night.
The military said the bodies of Israeli hostage Chanan Yablonka, Brazilian-Israeli Michel Nisenbaum and French-Mexican Orion Hernandez Radoux had been “rescued” and their families had been notified after forensic identification.
They were all “murdered” during the October 7 attack that sparked the war and taken into Gaza, the army said.
It follows the recovery last week of four bodies of hostages found in tunnels under Jabalia, including of Hernandez Radoux’s girlfriend Shani Louk.
Militants also took 252 hostages, 121 of whom remain in Gaza, including 37 the army says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 35,800 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Netanyahu, facing rising domestic pressure to secure the release of captives still held by Palestinian militants in Gaza, would soon address the US Congress, House Speaker Mike Johnson announced Thursday.
CIA chief Bill Burns is expected to hold talks in Paris with Israeli representatives on Friday or Saturday in a bid to relaunch negotiations, a Western source close to the issue said.
Gaza’s interior ministry said Thursday senior Hamas commander Diaa al-Din al-Sharafa had been killed by an Israeli strike in central Gaza, in a rare acknowledgement from Hamas of a high-ranking fatality.
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