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The World Court ordered Israel on Friday to prevent acts of genocide against the Palestinians and do more to help civilians, although it stopped short of ordering a ceasefire as requested by South Africa.
While the ruling denied Palestinian hopes of a binding order to halt the war in Gaza, it also represented a legal setback for Israel, which had hoped to throw out a case brought under the genocide convention established in the ashes of the Holocaust.
The court found that Palestinians were protected under the convention, and that there was a case to be heard about whether their rights were being denied in a war that the court said was causing grievous humanitarian harm. It also called for Palestinian armed groups to release hostages captured in the October 7 attacks that precipitated the conflict.
Palestinian officials largely hailed the decision. The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said it was a welcome reminder “no state is above the law”. Sami Abu Zuhri, a senior Hamas official told Reuters the decision would contribute to “isolating the occupation and exposing its crimes in Gaza.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the court had “justly rejected the outrageous demand” to deprive Israel of what he called the “basic right to defend itself”, by ordering it to halt fighting.
“But the mere claim that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians is not only false, it’s outrageous, and the willingness of the court to even discuss this is a disgrace that will not be erased for generations.”
Israeli Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir mocked the ruling in a two-word social media post with a Yiddish-style putdown: “Hague shmague”.
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South Africa brought the case to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) earlier this month, asking it to grant emergency measures to halt the fighting, which has killed more than 26,000 Palestinians and displaced the majority of the population in a more than three-month campaign of intensive bombardment.
It accused Israel of state-led genocide in its offensive, begun after Hamas militants stormed into Israel killing 1,200 and kidnapping more than 240. Israel sought to have the case thrown out.
The judges ordered Israel to take all measures within its power to prevent its troops from committing genocide, punish acts of incitement, take steps to improve the humanitarian situation and report back on its progress in a month. It did not decide the merits of the genocide allegations, which could take years. Although the ruling cannot be appealed, the court has no mechanism to enforce its decision. Israel had demanded the case be thrown out, calling South Africa’s allegations false and “grossly distorted”.
