Top UN court orders Israel to halt military offensive in Rafah; Israel is unlikely to comply

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The top United Nations court ordered Israel on Friday to immediately halt its military offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah — but stopped short of ordering a cease-fire for the enclave. Although Israel is unlikely to comply with the order, it will ratchet up the pressure on the increasingly isolated country.

Earlier, Israel signaled it, too, would brush off an ICJ order to stop its operations. “No power on earth will stop Israel from protecting its citizens and going after Hamas in Gaza,” Avi Hyman, the government spokesperson, said in a press briefing Thursday. Fears the court expressed earlier this year about an operation in Rafah have “materialized,” the ruling said, and Israel must “immediately halt its military offensive” in the city and anything else that might result in conditions that could cause the “physical destruction in whole or in part” of Palestinians there.

The court ordered Israel to keep the Rafah crossing open, saying"the humanitarian situation is now to be characterized as disastrous.” Balkees Jarrah, associate international justice director at Human Rights Watch, said the court’s order “underlines the gravity of the situation facing Palestinians in Gaza, who have for months endured the blocking of basic services and humanitarian aid amid continued fighting."

At public hearings last week at the International Court of Justice, South Africa's ambassador to the Netherlands, Vusimuzi Madonsela, urged the panel of 15 international judges to order Israel to “totally and unconditionally withdraw” from the Gaza Strip.

Source: Law Daily Report (lawdailyreport.net)

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