(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . International Court of Justice ruling on Israeli offensive in Rafah [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-05-31 The New York Times on May 30 reported What the I.C.J. Ruling Actually Means for Israel’s Offensive in Rafah (free link). The NYT article says the chief judge of the International Court of Justice told Israel on Friday, May 24 to halt its military offensive in Rafah, the southern Gaza city where more than a million displaced Gazans had fled for safety from Israeli bombardment. It calls the court’s ruling “unusually forceful” in saying Israel “must halt” its military offensive in Rafah “immediately.” The ruling also said: The State of Israel shall, in conformity with its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, and in view of the worsening conditions of life faced by civilians in the Rafah Governorate, immediately halt its military offensive, and any other action in the Rafah Governorate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part. Some legal scholars have been arguing about the wording of the order: does the second half of the sentence beginning with “which may inflict” put conditions on the order to “immediately halt.” Has Israel been told to halt its offensive, or to do so only if that offensive is about to partly or completely destroy Palestinians as a group? The NYT article explains that “there is a substantial consensus among legal experts that Israel cannot continue its current offensive in Rafah without violating the court’s order.“ The author of the article contacted five leading legal scholars who all said the order was clear. For example: One expert wrote: “The current offensive as currently planned and executed is prohibited under any reading.” Another wrote: “This sentence means Israel must halt its current military offensive in Rafah.” All of the experts the author spoke to “agreed that the order prohibited Israel from continuing its current operation in Rafah, but believed it allowed for Israel to take more limited defensive actions in the city in response to attacks from Hamas.” The article points out that “the urgency of the court’s intervention” is explained in part of the order: “On the basis of the information before it, the Court is not convinced that the evacuation efforts and related measures that Israel affirms to have undertaken to enhance the security of civilians in the Gaza Strip, and in particular those recently displaced from the Rafah Governorate, are sufficient to alleviate the immense risk to which the Palestinian population is exposed as a result of the military offensive in Rafah. In addition, the court found that “the current situation arising from Israel’s military offensive in Rafah entails a further risk to the rights of Palestinians in Gaza.” The article points out that any discussion of what Israel can legally do in Rafah is “not immediately relevant,” because all indications are that Israel is continuing the current offensive despite the court’s instructions to stop. The article also provides more information about the May 24 court order, which it describes as “an interim decision in a case that South Africa filed in December, alleging that Israel’s military actions in Gaza violate the 1948 Genocide Convention.” The article says: A decision on the merits of the case is probably years away. In the meantime, the court has issued a series of “provisional measures” — essentially temporary injunctions — ordering Israel to proactively ensure genocide doesn’t occur while the broader case is pending. According to the article, the first “provisional measure” (issued in January) ordered Israel “to refrain from genocidal acts, to prevent and punish incitement, and to enable the provision of humanitarian assistance.” An order in March added a requirement to the provision of humanitarian assistance that Israel take “all necessary and effective measures” to ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid “at scale.” The article says that after Israel began its military operation in Rafah in early May, South Africa “urgently requested new provisional measures, arguing that the Rafah incursion would cause irreparable harm to the rights of the Palestinian people in Gaza.” It reports that on Friday, May 24, by a majority of 13 to 2, the court’s judges found that the risks to civilians warned of in previous orders had now materialized, and that the situation had become “disastrous.” The article also reports that the court said Israel has not provided sufficient information concerning the safety of the population during the evacuation process, or the availability in the Al-Mawasi area of the necessary amount of water, sanitation, food, medicine and shelter for the 800,000 Palestinians that have evacuated thus far. (Al-Mawasi is a coastal area in Gaza to which many of the civilians in Rafah had been displaced.) According to the article, the court said this created a risk of “irreparable prejudice to the plausible rights claimed by South Africa,” and it ordered Israel to halt its military offensive in Rafah, to keep the Rafah crossing on the border with Egypt open “at scale” for the provision of humanitarian aid, and to allow U.N.-mandated investigators access to Gaza. The article continues at length to show various experts’ views of what the International Court of Justice has meant by its various “provisional measures” since January in relation to the South African case against Israel. www.nytimes.com/... 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