THE HAGUE, Netherlands: The United Nations\u2019 top court stopped short Friday of ordering a ceasefire in Gaza in a case accusing Israel of genocide in the tiny coastal enclave, but demanded that Israel try to limit deaths and damage caused by its military offensive there.
\nSouth Africa brought the case, which goes to the core of one of the world\u2019s most intractable conflicts, and had asked the court to order Israel to halt its operation.
\nWhile the ruling stopped short of that, it nonetheless amounted to an overwhelming rebuke of Israel\u2019s wartime conduct and adds to mounting international pressure to halt the offensive that has killed more than 26,000 Palestinians, decimated vast swaths Gaza, and driven nearly 85 percent of its 2.3 million people from their homes.
\nIn the highly anticipated decision made by a panel of 17 judges, the International Court of Justice decided not to throw out the case \u2014 and ordered six so-called provisional measures to protect Palestinians in Gaza.
\nMany of the measures were approved by an overwhelming majority of the judges. An Israeli judge voted in favor of two of the six.
\n\u201cThe court is acutely aware of the extent of the human tragedy that is unfolding in the region and is deeply concerned about the continuing loss of life and human suffering,\u201d Joan E. Donoghue, the court\u2019s president, said.
\nProvisional measures by the world court are legally binding, but it is not clear if Israel will comply with them.
\nAfter the ruling, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the genocide claims as \u201coutrageous\u201d and vowed to press ahead with the war.
\n\u201cWe will continue to do what is necessary to defend our country and defend our people,\u201d he said.
\nFriday\u2019s decision is only an interim one; it could take years for the full case brought by South Africa to be considered. Israel rejects the genocide accusation.
\nWhile the case winds its way through the court, South Africa has asked the judges \u201cas a matter of extreme urgency\u201d to impose provisional measures.
\nTop of the South African list was a request for the court to order Israel to \u201cimmediately suspend its military operations in and against Gaza.\u201d But the court declined to do that.
\nSouth Africa also asked for Israel to take \u201creasonable measures\u201d to prevent genocide and allow access for desperately needed aid.
\nThe court ruled that Israel must refrain from killing Palestinians or causing harm to them and that it urgently needs to get basic aid to people in Gaza. It also ruled that Israel should prevent and punish any incitement to genocide, among other measures.
\nPalestinian Foreign Minister Riyadh Al-Maliki welcomed \u201cthe significant order.\u201d
\nOn Thursday, Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy had said that Israel expected the court to toss out the \u201cspurious and specious charges.\u201d
\nIsrael often boycotts international tribunals and UN investigations, saying they are unfair and biased. But this time, it took the rare step of sending a high-level legal team \u2014 a sign of how seriously it regards the case and likely the fear that any court order to halt operations would be a major blow to the country\u2019s international standing.
\nAn Israeli official said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu huddled with top legal, diplomatic and security officials on Thursday in anticipation of the ruling. He said Israel is confident in its case but discussed \u201call scenarios.\u201d The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing confidential meetings.
\nIsrael launched its massive air and ground assault on Gaza after Hamas militants stormed through Israeli communities on Oct. 7 killing some 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and abducting another 250.
\nThe offensive has decimated vast swaths of the territory and driven nearly 85 percent of its 2.3 million people from their homes.
\nMore than 26,000 Palestinians have been killed, the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run enclave said on Friday. The ministry does not differentiate between combatants and civilians in its death toll, but has said about two-thirds of those killed were women and children.
\nThe Israeli military claims at least 9,000 of those killed in the nearly four-month conflict are Hamas militants.
\nUN officials have expressed fears that even more people could die from disease, with at least one-quarter of the population facing starvation.
\nHow the US, Israel\u2019s top ally, responds to any order will be key, since it wields veto power at the UN Security Council and thus could block measures there aimed at forcing Israel\u2019s compliance.
\nThe US has said Israel has the right to defend itself, but also spoken about the need for the country to protect civilians in Gaza and allow more aid in.
\nThe genocide case strikes at the national identity of Israel, which was founded as a Jewish state after the Nazi slaughter of 6 million Jews during World War II.
\nSouth Africa\u2019s own identity is key to it bringing the case. Its governing party, the African National Congress, has long compared Israel\u2019s policies in Gaza and the West Bank to its own history under the apartheid regime of white minority rule, which restricted most Black people to \u201chomelands\u201d before ending in 1994.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
THE HAGUE, Netherlands: The United Nations\u2019 top court stopped short Friday of ordering a ceasefire in Gaza in a case accusing Israel of genocide in the tiny coastal enclave, but demanded that Israel try to limit deaths and damage caused by its military offensive there. South Africa brought the case, which goes to the core …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":60021,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60008"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60023,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60008\/revisions\/60023"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}