Israel tops UN Tribunal order on Rafah

Tel Aviv, Israel:

Israel considers that a World Court order to suspend its military offensive in Rafah, in southern Gaza, allows room for some military action there, Israeli officials said.

In an emergency ruling in the South African case accusing Israel of genocide, judges at the International Court of Justice on Friday ordered Israel to immediately halt its attack on Rafah, where Israel says it is rooting out Hamas fighters.

“What they are asking us is not to commit genocide in Rafah. We have not committed genocide and we will not commit genocide,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi told Israel’s N12 TV on Saturday.

Asked whether the Rafah offensive would continue, Hanegbi said: “According to international law, we have the right to defend ourselves and the evidence is that the court is not stopping us from continuing to defend ourselves.”

The Hague-based ICJ did not immediately comment on Hanegbi’s remarks. Hamas also did not immediately comment.

Another Israeli official pointed to the wording of the ICJ, or World Court, decision, describing it as conditional.

“The order regarding Operation Rafah is not a general order,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

Reading the ruling, ICJ President Nawaf Salam said that the situation in Gaza had deteriorated since the court last ordered Israel to take steps to improve it, and that the conditions for a new order of emergency.

“The State of Israel must (…) immediately suspend its military offensive, and any other action in the province of Rafah, which could inflict living conditions on the Palestinian group in Gaza that could lead to its physical destruction, total or partial. ” said Salam.

This formulation does not exclude all military action, the Israeli official said.

“We have never and will not conduct any military action in Rafah or anywhere else that would inflict any living conditions that would bring about the destruction of the civilian population in Gaza, neither in whole nor in part,” the official said.

Although the court does not have the means to enforce its orders, the case is a sign of Israel’s growing diplomatic isolation due to its campaign against the Palestinian armed group Hamas in Gaza.

Israel began its offensive in Gaza to try to eliminate Hamas after the group invaded communities in southern Israel on October 7 last year. It has continued its offensive since the ICJ decision.

Nearly 36,000 Palestinians were killed in the offensive, the Gaza Health Ministry says, and much of Gaza was devastated. Around 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage on October 7, according to Israeli records.

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