The order by the International Court of Justice on Friday regarding Israel’s military operation in the southern Gazan city of Rafah represented a new phase in the court’s intervention in the Israel-Hamas war, as it constituted the first time it issued instructions regarding Israel’s actual conduct of the campaign.
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| The International Court of Justice hears oral arguments over South Africa’s application asking the court to order Israel to halt its military campaign against Hamas, May 17, 2024. Photo: International Court of Justice via timesofisrael.com |
The order itself was not clear-cut as, while it instructed Israel to “Immediately halt its military offensive, and any other action in the Rafah Governorate,” it appeared to condition that order on whether or not that offensive and those actions would “inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”
As ICJ Vice-President Julia Sebutinde interpreted the order in her dissent, “the objective of the Court is to order Israel to suspend its military offensive in Rafah only in so far as such suspension is necessary to prevent the bringing about of conditions of life that could bring about the destruction of the Palestinians in Gaza.”
Three other judges on the court — Judge Georg Nolte of Germany, Judge Bogdan-Lucian Aurescu of Romania and ad hoc judge Aharon Barak of Israel — came to the same conclusion as Sebutinde.
timesofisrael.com
