South Africa urged the UN’s top court
Tuesday to place more legal pressure on Israel to halt a threatened offensive
against the densely crowded Gaza city of Rafah.
Pretoria has already made a complaint against Israel in the International
Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, alleging that its assault on Gaza
amounts to a breach of the Genocide Convention.
The court has yet to rule on the underlying issue, but on January 26 it
ordered Israel to ensure in the interim that it takes action to protect
Palestinian civilians from further harm and to allow in humanitarian aid.
Israel’s campaign has continued, however, and its forces are preparing an
operation against Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s 2.4 million people
have sought shelter from the bombardment.
For South Africa, this is enough to ask the ICJ to revisit its provisional
measures and issue a sterner order.
“There has since been a significant development in the situation in Gaza
requiring the Court’s urgent attention,” South Africa said in its updated
request.
It said it was “gravely concerned that the unprecedented military offensive
against Rafah, as announced by the State of Israel, has already led to and
will result in further large scale killing, harm and destruction.”বিস্তারিত