Zane Dangor .Photo by Gallo Images/Lefty Shivambu)
The order by the International Court of Justice on Friday for Israel to immediately halt its military operations in Rafah in southern Gaza was ground-breaking, South Africa’s director-general of international relations said.
The United Nation’s top court voted by a majority of 13 to two that Israel shall, in line with its obligations under the genocide convention and in view of the deteriorating conditions in Rafah, “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 would bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”.
The order was handed down in response to a plea by South Africa to impose further provisional measures to protect Palestinians pending a ruling in a lawsuit which accuses Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.
The ICJ in an interim judgment in January held that there was a risk of violation of the rights of the Palestinian people to protection from genocide.
“This order is ground-breaking as it is the first time that explicit mention is made for Israel to halt its military action in any area of Gaza, this time specifically in Rafah,” Dangor said.
“While legally the court cannot use the term ceasefire… this is a de facto calling for a ceasefire,” Dangor added.
“It is ordering the major party in this conflict to end its belligerent action against the people of Palestine.”
Dangor noted that the court also ordered Israel to allow access to investigators appointed by the United Nations to probe actions that would be genocide in all of Gaza.
“Again this is important as it allows for independent researchers to go into areas that journalists have been prohibited from,” he said, adding that this was important in the context of the litigation against Israel.
“It also allows those engaging in legal action to have independent verified UN experts doing a lot of the investigations and that too is a very important order.
“We will be approaching the UN Security Council with this order so that they can effect this part of it.”
While the orders are unenforceable – and Israel immediately said it would not comply – Dangor stressed that they were binding not only on Israel but also on third-party states, meaning other signatories to the 1948 genocide convention.
“We will be engaging with other third-party states to ensure that in the interest of respecting international law, that they too ensure that they comply with the court orders that were passed today.
The ICJ ruling came four days after Kamir Khan, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, announced that he was seeking warrants of arrest for Israeli and Hamas leaders, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Khan said there were reasonable grounds to believe that Netanyahu and defence minister Yoav Gallant bore responsibility for crimes including extermination and using starvation as a means of warfare.
According to Palestinian authorities, 35 000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its military onslaught in retaliation to Hamas’s massacre of 1 139 people in southern Israel on October 7 last year.