The United Nations’ top court on Friday ordered Israel to immediately halt its military operations in the Rafah region of the Gaza Strip, partially granting a request by South Africa in a case over genocide allegations.
South Africa accuses Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians during the Gaza war, which Israel vehemently denies.
Israel must open the Rafah border crossing for humanitarian assistance and submit a report on the measures it’s taking to do that within one month, the International Court of Justice ruled by a vote of 13-2 on Friday.
The ICJ’s judgments are binding, with no right of appeal, but it has no mechanism to enforce any order.
However, Israel bombed the Gaza Strip, including Rafah, on Saturday, a day after the top UN court ordered it to halt military operations in the southern city as efforts get underway in Paris to seek a ceasefire in the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack.
In the past two weeks, more than a million Palestinians fled Rafah as Israeli forces pressed deeper into the city.
People displaced by fighting lack shelter, food, water and other essentials for survival, the UN says.
Israel says it needs to invade Rafah to destroy Hamas militants’ last stronghold.
At least 35,857 Palestinians have been killed and 79,990 wounded in Israel’s war in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
France’s president, Qatar’s prime minister and the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan held talks Friday on the Gaza war and ways to set up a Palestinian state alongside Israel, the French presidency said.
