Israel ordered to halt Rafah offensive

The International Court of Justice has told Israel to halt its Rafah offensive, but Israel has shown no sign it will abide by the ruling.

Israel has been ordered by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to halt its military offensive against the city of Rafah due to the “immediate risk” to the Palestinian population.

But in a brutal show of force, minutes after the ruling was published by the United Nations’ body, Israel struck a refugee camp in the middle of the city.

Hamas has welcomed the ruling but Israel has said it would be “public suicide” to stop fighting the Palestinian militant group.

Rafah is a city in Gaza adjacent to the Egyptian border. It is seen by Israel as a holdout of Hamas.

The International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) Judgement comes just days after the separate International Criminal Court, like the ICJ also based at The Hague in the Netherlands, issued arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his defence minister and three Hamas leaders for suspected war crimes due to the conflict.

“Israel must immediately halt its military offensive and any other action in the Rafah Governorate which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part,” said Judge Nawaf Salam, ICJ president said on Friday.

“The humanitarian situation is now to be characterised as disastrous” he added.

An Israeli army battle tank moves near the border with the Gaza Strip at a location in southern Israel on May 15, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict in the Palestinian territory between Israel and the Hamas movement. (Photo by JACK GUEZ / AFP)

The ICJ also said Israel should open the Rafah border crossing to Egypt to allow in humanitarian aid at scale and allow investigators into Gaza. The UN has said not enough aid is reaching Gaza with Palestinian facing famine.

It; s thought around 800,000 people have fled Rafah fearful of Israeli attacks.

However, the ruling may have very little effect on Israel’s current plans. While the ICJ’s rulings are legally binding there is little the court can do if Israel ignores it.

Israel had been told to report back to the ICJ within a month to explain how it is meeting the judgement.

The case was brought by South Africa under the Genocide Convention that came into force in 1951 following the Holocaust of the Jewish people during the Second World War.

The case itself does not accuse Israel of genocide, however, but rather that there is a risk Palestinians in Gaza will have no protection.

South Africa has strongly criticised Israel’s actions during the conflict.

The ICJ judges said Israel’s evacuation and humanitarian plans had not been sufficient ahead of a move on Rafah.

South African ambassador to the Netherlands Vusimuzi Madonsela (R) attends a hearing at the International Court of Justice as part of South Africa's request on a Gaza ceasefire in The Hague, on May 24, 2024. (Photo by Nick Gammon / AFP)

Judge Salam didn’t just focus on Israel’s actions. The ICJ judge said there were “grave concerns” about the fate of hostages Hamas continued to hold and said they should be immediately released.

“We find it deeply troubling that many still remain in captivity,” he adds.

Another three dead hostages were found on Friday morning, local time.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Photo by ABIR SULTAN / POOL / AFP)

Israel has, unsurprisingly, dismissed the ICJ’s comments.

“There is no power in the world that will push us to commit a public suicide, because that’s what this is, to stop our war against Hamas,” Israeli government spokesman David Mencer told the BBC.

Senior Israeli minister Benny Gantz said the nation would continue its offensive “wherever and whenever necessary – including in Rafah”.

Hamas said it “welcomes the decision of the International Court of Justice”, reported AFP.

It “demands that the brutal Zionist entity stop its aggression”.

But it added that it expected the ICJ ruling to “put an end to the aggression and genocide against our people throughout the Gaza Strip, and not just in Rafah”.

Around 36,000 Palestinian have died in the Israel-Gaza war which was sparked by Hamas’ killing of more than a thousands people in Israel on October 7 and the kidnapping of hundreds more.