Palestinian children hold placards during a march demanding an end to the war and their right to live, education, and play on February 14, 2024 in Rafah, Gaza. (Photo: Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images.
A South African leader welcomed the court’s affirmation that “the perilous situation demands immediate and effective implementation of the provisional measures” from its earlier ruling.
As Israeli forces plan a full-scale assault on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, the International Court of Justice on Friday forcefully reminded Israel that it must comply with a January order to meet its obligations under the Genocide Convention.
South Africa—which is leading the genocide case against Israel that led to six provisional measures from the ICJ last month—asked the World Court for emergency action on Tuesday in light of the Israeli plan to attack Rafah, whose population has surged to roughly 1.5 million as Palestinians have fled bombings and raids in northern Gaza.
The ICJ, which is part of the United Nations, weighed in just a day after Israel submitted its response to South Africa’s request.
“The court notes that the most recent developments in the Gaza Strip, and in Rafah in particular, ‘would exponentially increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare with untold regional consequences,'” the ICJ said Friday, quoting United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks to the U.N. General Assembly last week.
“This perilous situation demands immediate and effective implementation of the provisional measures indicated by the court in its order of 26 January 2024, which are applicable throughout the Gaza Strip, including in Rafah, and does not demand the indication of additional provisional measures,” the World Court continued.
“The court emphasizes that the state of Israel remains bound to fully comply with its obligations under the Genocide Convention and with the said order, including by ensuring the safety and security of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip,” the ICJ added.
Clayson Monyela of South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation said on social media that his country welcomes the development.
“The court has affirmed our view that the perilous situation demands immediate and effective implementation of the provisional measures indicated by the court in its order of 26 January 2024 which are applicable throughout the Gaza Strip and has clarified that this includes Rafah,” he said.
The ICJ’s decision comes as countries including South Africa prepare to participate in hearings before the Hague-based court next week about Israel’s 57-year occupation of Palestine. South African representatives are set to present second, after the Palestinians.
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign event at Mother Emanuel AME Church on January 8, 2024 in Charleston, South Carolina. (Photo: Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
The electoral base that Biden is going to need for re-election is heavily against his support for Israel’s war on Gaza. There is no way to hide from that fact.
For more than four months, President Biden has been the main enabler for Israel’s mass murder of Palestinian people in Gaza. Every day, hundreds of civilians are killed by U.S. weaponry and, increasingly, by hunger and disease. The cruelty and magnitude of the slaughter are repugnant to anyone who isn’t somehow numb to the human agony.
Such numbing is widespread in the United States. Some factors include ethnocentric, racial, and religious biases against Arabs and Muslims. The steep pro-Israel tilt of news media runs parallel to the slant of U.S. government officials, with language that routinely conveys much lower regard for Palestinian lives than Israeli lives.
And while the credibility of the Israeli government has tumbled, the brawny arms of the Israel lobby—notably AIPAC and Democratic Majority for Israel—still exert enormous leverage over the vast majority of Congress. Few legislators are willing to vote against massive military aid that makes the carnage in Gaza possible.
Instead of candor, the routine choices have been euphemisms and silence. But—morally and politically—that’s a big mistake.
A chilling example is Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland. On Monday night, he took to the Senate floor and condemned Israel in no uncertain terms. “Kids in Gaza are now dying from the deliberate withholding of food,” he said. “In addition to the horror of that news, one other thing is true. That is a war crime. It is a textbook war crime. And that makes those who orchestrate it war criminals.”
Watching video from Van Hollen’s impassioned speech, you might assume that he would vote against sending $14 billion in further military aid to those “war criminals.” But hours later, he did just the opposite. As journalist Ryan Grim noted, “the senator’s speech pulsed with moral clarity—until it petered out into a stumbling rationale for his forthcoming yes vote.”
In contrast, three senators in the Democratic caucus—Jeff Merkley, Peter Welch, and Bernie Sanders—voted no. Sanders delivered a powerful speech calling for decency instead of further moral collapse from the top of the U.S. government.
While the Senate deliberated, the White House again made clear that it wasn’t serious about getting in the way of Israel’s planned assault on the city of Rafah. That’s where most of Gaza’s 2.2 million surviving residents have taken unsafe refuge from the Orwellian-named Israel Defense Forces.
An exchange at a White House news conference on Monday underscored that Biden is determined to keep enabling Israel’s continuous war crimes in Gaza:
Reporter: “Has the president ever threatened to strip military assistance from Israel if they move ahead with a Rafah operation that does not take into consequence what happens with civilians?”
Spokesman John Kirby: “We’re going to continue to support Israel. They have a right to defend themselves against Hamas and we’re going to continue to make sure they have the tools and the capabilities to do that.”
Later this week, Politico summed up: “The Biden administration is not planning to punish Israel if it launches a military campaign in Rafah without ensuring civilian safety.” Citing interviews with three U.S. officials, the article reported that “no reprimand plans are in the works, meaning Israeli forces could enter the city and harm civilians without facing American consequences.”
Biden continues to serve as an accomplice while mouthing platitudes of concern about the lives of civilians in Gaza. Month after month, he has done all he can to supply the Israeli military to the max.
With just eight months until the voting starts that could propel Donald Trump back into the presidency, the prospect of his return to power is all too real.
Under an apt headline—“Biden Is Mad at Netanyahu? Spare Me.”—The Nation senior editor Jack Mirkinson wrote this week: “In the real world, Biden and his legislative partners have continued to arm Israel; the Democratic leadership in the Senate actually brought people in on Super Bowl Sunday to take a vote on a bill that would, along with rearming Ukraine, send Israel another $14.1 billion for what is euphemistically dubbed ‘security assistance.’”
Ever since October, inspiring protests and activism in the United States have challenged U.S. support for Israel’s military assault on Gaza. However, boosted by revulsion at the atrocities that Hamas committed against Israeli civilians on October 7, the usual rationales for supporting Israel’s violence against Palestinians have been hard at work.
In this election year, an additional factor looms large. With just eight months until the voting starts that could propel Donald Trump back into the presidency, the prospect of his return to power is all too real. And with Biden set to be the Democratic Party’s nominee, countless individuals and groups are careful to avoid saying much that’s critical of the president they want to see re-elected.
Instead of candor, the routine choices have been euphemisms and silence. But—morally and politically—that’s a big mistake.
The electoral base that Biden is going to need for re-election is heavily against his support for Israel’s war on Gaza. Polling shows that young people in particular are overwhelmingly opposed. Most have seen through the thin veneer of his weak pleas for Israel to not kill so many civilians.
No amount of evasions, silences or doubletalk can make Biden’s policies morally acceptable. But—while the administration combines its PR hand-wringing with military arms-supplying—Biden apologists go on and on with evasion and verbal gymnastics to defend the indefensible.
A far better course of action would be actual candor about current realities: Joe Biden’s moral collapse is enabling the Israeli government to continue, with impunity, its large-scale massacre of Palestinian people. In the process, Biden is increasing the chances that the Republican Party, led by fascistic Donald Trump, will gain control of the White House in January.
An Israeli woman holds a sign opposing Israel’s looming invasion of Rafah, Gaza during a February 13, 2024 protest outside the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv. (Photo: Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images)
Demonstrators turned out from Cardiff to Tel Aviv as Palestinians in the Gaza city endured heavy Israeli bombing while bracing for an all-out ground invasion.
Global emergency protests against Israel’s expected invasion of Rafah continued Tuesday, a day after demonstrators took to the streets of cities around the world to say “hands off” the southern Gaza city whose population has swelled more than fivefold due to the influx of Palestinian war refugees.
Hundreds of protesters turned out in the cold and rain of Cardiff, Wales Tuesday afternoon, with demonstrations planned for later in the day in cities including Manchester, England and Houston, Texas.
“We do not care if it is raining—it’s raining bombs in Rafah over a million Palestinians, squeezed into an area barely the size of an airport,” protest co-organizer Black Lives Matter Cardiff & Vale said on social media.
HAPPENING NOW!
🇵🇸At short notice, hundreds have braved the rain in central Cardiff against the Israeli bombing of Rafah and the unfolding genocide in Gaza.
Over 26,000 Palestinians Inc over 11,000 children have been killed in the past four months. pic.twitter.com/Wq9Q5VhSEd
In Tel Aviv, a crowd of left-wing Israelis protested outside the headquarters of the Ministry of Defense, holding signs with messages including “Stop Bombing Gaza” and “Stop Funding Genocide.”
Now in Tel Aviv: Israeli left wing activists protest in front of the Ministry of Defense agagainst the planed ground operation in Rafah #gazapic.twitter.com/08Zp6COjCl
Tuesday’s demonstrations followed Monday protests around the world including outside both the White House in Washington, D.C. and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s residence on Downing Street in London. Rallies and marches also took place in cities including Rome, New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, Vancouver, and at U.S. President Joe Biden’s campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, where 21 Sunrise Movement climate activists were arrested.
Airstrikes on Rafah are intensifying as the Israel Defense Forces appear poised to launch a major ground invasion of the besieged city on the Egyptian border. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed and wounded in Rafah since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Friday order to the IDF to create an evacuation plan for the 1.5 million people in the city, most of them refugees from other parts of Gaza.
South African officials said Tuesday that Israel’s bombing of Rafah and stated intent to invade the city are violations of the International Court of Justice’s order for Israel to “take all measures within its power” to prevent acts of genocide. The court found in a preliminary ruling that Israeli forces were “plausibly” committing genocide, as alleged in the South Africa-led case.
The looming invasion of Rafah comes amid a wider war on Gaza in which more than 100,000 Palestinians have been killed, maimed, or left missing by Israeli bombs and bullets since October 7, when Hamas led deadly attacks on southern Israel and kidnapped over 240 Israelis and others. Around 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced and a majority of the besieged strip’s homes have been damaged or destroyed by Israel’s relentless onslaught.
Senior officials from Israel, the U.S., Egypt, and Qatar met in Cairo on Tuesday to resume negotiations for an extended cease-fire in Gaza in exchange for the release of the approximately 130 hostages held by Hamas.
Smoke rises after a bombardment in the Gaza Strip, February 12, 2024
SOUTH AFRICA said it had lodged an urgent request with the United Nations International Court of Justice (ICJ) over Israel’s assault on Palestinians in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
The South African government is asking the ICJ to consider whether Israel has committed a “further imminent breach of the rights of Palestinians in Gaza” following the provisional orders the court handed down last month.
This comes as progress is reportedly being made in securing a ceasefire deal between Hamas and the Israeli government.
In December, South Africa instituted proceedings at the ICJ accusing Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.
Among its six orders, the ICJ said that Israel must do all it can to prevent the deaths of Palestinians and the destruction of Gaza.
…
A statement released by the office of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, said: “The South African government was gravely concerned that the unprecedented military offensive against Rafah, as announced by the state of Israel, has already led to and will result in further large-scale killing, harm and destruction.
“This would be in serious and irreparable breach both of the Genocide Convention and of the court’s order of January 26 2024.”
Palestinians sit by the destruction from the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip in Rafah on February 12, 2024
AT LEAST 95 civilians were killed in four unlawful air strikes on an alleged “safe” area in Rafah, a damning new report by Amnesty International revealed today.
The dead included 42 children. The Gaza Health Ministry says more than 12,300 minors have been killed in the besieged enclave since Israel began its invasion of Gaza following the Hamas attack on it on October 7.
According to Israeli authorities, 1,139 people died during the Hamas assault and more than 200 people were taken as hostages.
It also comes as Israel intensified its bombing of Rafah in preparation for an expected ground assault. Palestinians had been ordered to evacuate to the area by Israeli authorities as a place of safety from the battle that raged in northern Gaza.
According to Amnesty the evidence shows that Israeli forces are flouting international humanitarian law in their military operations in Gaza.
