The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the UN’s highest court, heard Israel’s arguments this Friday (17) following a request from South Africa for emergency measures to be taken due to the Israeli offensive in the city of Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip.
Pretoria, which had spoken out the day before, filed a case against Israel at the ICJ in December making accusations of genocide, the merits of which are not expected to be judged.
At the end of March, the ICJ adopted precautionary measures against Israel and demanded that it prevent its Army from committing “acts of genocide” against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip or preventing the delivery of humanitarian assistance.
However, Pretoria has once again called for emergency measures because it considers that the land offensive in Rafah represents a change in the conflict.
This Friday, Israel once again denied that it is committing genocide in Gaza – the enclave’s Ministry of Health, administered by Hamas, says that more than 35,000 people were killed by Israeli forces, who dispute these figures. Additionally, the United Nations revised down data on deaths of women and children this month.
“Israel takes extraordinary measures to minimize harm to civilians in Gaza,” said Tamar Kaplan-Tourgeman, a member of Israel’s legal team, also claiming that the country has allowed humanitarian aid to enter Gaza.
Israel’s Deputy Attorney General, Gilad Noam, said this Friday in The Hague that, contrary to South Africa’s argument that “if Rafah falls, Gaza will also fall”, “the reality is exactly the opposite”.
“Only by taking down the Hamas military stronghold of Rafah will the Palestinians be freed from the clutches of the murderous terrorist regime and the path to peace and prosperity finally be paved,” Noam said, according to information from the BBC.
According to the UN, more than 1 million Palestinians displaced by the war have taken refuge in Rafah, however, more than 630,000 have left the site since the start of Israel’s ground offensive.
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