The court based in The Hague – while stopping short of ordering an immediate halt to the almost four-month-old war – said Israel must do everything to “prevent the commission of all acts within the scope” of the Genocide Convention.
South Africa had brought the case against Israel, accusing it of breaching the 1948 U.N. Genocide Convention, set up in the ashes of World War II and the Holocaust.
President Cyril Ramaphosa and the council of South Africa’s governing party erupted in cheers after the ruling, which the foreign ministry hailed as a “decisive victory”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the ruling as “outrageous”.
Netanyahu had already suggested he does not feel bound by the court, saying: “No one will stop us – not The Hague, not the Axis of Evil and no one else.”
Hamas hailed the decision as “an important development which contributes to isolating Israel and exposing its crimes in Gaza.”
Mushtana Musalim, a 56-year-old displaced man from Gaza City, expressed gratitude to South Africa for bringing the case against Israel.
“This in itself is an achievement in our favor, but going back in history, Israel has not recognized international decisions,” he told Agence France-Presse (AFP). “As Palestinians, we support the step and we feel proud of it.”
Israeli flag carrier El Al said Friday ahead of the ruling that it would scrap direct flights to South Africa following “a significant fall in demand by Israeli travelers”.
The war started with the Oct.7 attack by Hamas that resulted in about 1,140 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized about 250 hostages and Israel says around 132 of them remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 28 dead captives.
Israel has vowed to crush Hamas and launched a military offensive that Gaza’s health ministry says has killed at least 26,083 people, about 70% of them women and children.
CATASTROPHIC SITUATION
On the ground, AFPTV images from Gaza City on Friday showed hundreds of Palestinians crowding around a truck delivering aid.
Footage from the Maghazi refugee camp in nearby Deir al-Balah showed scores of decomposing bodies amid the rubble.
“We are suffering from a catastrophic situation and real famine is taking place throughout Gaza,” said one displaced man in Gaza City’s Zeitun neighborhood.
In Khan Yunis, south Gaza’s main city, health ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra said Nasser Hospital had “completely run out of food, anesthetics and painkillers because of the Israeli siege”.
Thousands of displaced people faced “starvation” at the facility, along with 150 staff and 350 patients, he said.
The U.N. humanitarian agency OCHA said the hospital was only functioning “minimally” as the army surrounded it and was experiencing intense fighting.
Elsewhere, in Khan Younis, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said Israeli tanks were targeting the Al-Amal hospital which was “under siege with heavy gunfire”.
ATTACKS ON CIVILIANS
The scenes of desperation came a day after the Hamas-controlled health ministry accused Israeli forces of killing 20 people waiting for aid to be distributed on Gaza City’s outskirts.
AFP was unable to verify those claims, and Israel had yet to respond to a request for comment.
It was the second such attack in two days after the U.N. said tanks had shelled one of its shelters in Khan Yunis, killing 13 people.
The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said the Israeli army had ordered people to leave the site by 5:00 p.m. (1500 GMT) on Friday, although the military denied issuing a specific evacuation request.
The Israeli military is the only force known to operate tanks in Gaza.
Hamas also reported fierce clashes in the center and west of Khan Younis, the hometown of Hamas’s Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar, the suspected mastermind of the Oct.7 attacks.
The army said Friday that one more soldier had died in Gaza, bringing to at least 222 the overall number killed since Israeli ground operations started in late October.
‘SEA OF PEOPLE’
The Gaza health ministry said 120 people were killed across Gaza overnight.
Many thousands have fled to Rafah, on the southern border with Egypt, where most of the 1.7 million Palestinians displaced by the war have gathered.
They piled their belongings into cars, tractors and donkey-drawn carts while many others fled on foot.
“I don’t know where I’m heading,” said Musa Abu Yussef. “I’ve taken nothing with me, no blankets, no sheets, no (tent) – nothing at all.”
UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini said on social media platform X that “a sea of people” had been forced to flee Khan Yunis for the border with Egypt.
An AFP journalist in Rafah said there was no more space left for the tens of thousands escaping Khan Yunis and that fears were growing about Israeli troops reaching Rafah.
Source: Newsroom & AFP
