Following South Africa’s urgent request for the modification and indication of provisional measures submitted on 10 May, judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Friday ordered Israel to ‘immediately’ halt its assault on Rafah in the south of Gaza.
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While the court did not order Israel’s military out of the entire Gaza Strip, as South Africa requested during its oral argument last week, it agreed that the situation in the enclave had deteriorated since its orders of 26 January and 28 March 2024.
The order passed with 13 of the 15 ICJ judges agreeing to call on the immediate cessation of Israel’s military incursion in Rafah to ensure the survival of the Palestinian people.
Reaffirming provisional measures already issued in January and modified in March, the ICJ indicated the following provisional measures:
- Israel must ‘immediately halt its military offensive, and any other action in the Rafah Governorate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza’s conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part’.
- Israel must ‘maintain open the Rafah crossing for unhindered provision at scale of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance’.
- Israel must ‘take effective measures to ensure the unimpeded access to the Gaza Strip of any commission of inquiry, fact-finding mission or other investigative body mandated by competent organs of the United Nations (UN) to investigate allegations of genocide’.
Referring to the situation in Rafah as ‘disastrous’, the ICJ also ordered that Israel report back to the court within one month over its progress in applying measures ordered by the institution.
The body’s president Judge Nawaf Salam read out the ruling to the court.
The UN had noted than some 1.5 million Palestinians were sheltering in Rafah – making it one of the most densely populated areas on Earth – when Israel’s military began its ground incursions in the city on 7 May, reported Daily Maerick.
The UN estimates that 800 000 Palestinians have been displaced from Rafah as at 18 May.
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Picture: @CIJ_ICJ / X