‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 112: In a historic moment, ICJ moves forward with genocide case against Israel

Casualties:

• 26,083 killed* and at least 64,487 wounded in the Gaza Strip.
• 387+ Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem
• Israel revises its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,147.
• 556 Israeli soldiers killed since October 7, and at least 3,221 injured.**

*This figure was confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Health. Some rights groups put the death toll number at more than 33,000 when accounting for those presumed dead.

** This figure is released by the Israeli military.

Key Developments

• ICJ orders Israel to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza and report back to the court in a month, but stops short of calling for an immediate ceasefire.
• The ruling is nonetheless viewed as a “decisive victory for international law” by South Africa, which brought the case forward to the international court.
• Far from the halls of The Hague, Israeli forces kill 183 Palestinians in the span of 24 hours, including at least 20 who were shot at while trying to get humanitarian aid in Gaza City.
• As Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis lies besieged for the fifth consecutive day, the Gaza Ministry of Health warns that it had now run out of food, anesthetics, and painkillers.
• Palestinian Civil Defense forecasts torrential rain and strong winds in coming days, which a U.N. official says will render Gaza “completely uninhabitable.”
• Meanwhile, Israeli protesters block aid from entering Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing for the third day in a row. 
• Sixteen humanitarian and human rights agencies call on all U.N. member states to stop providing weapons and ammunition to Israel and Palestinian armed groups.
• Israel’s Negev prison is turning into an “unbearable hell” for Palestinian detainees amid food and water deprivation and other abuses, the P.A.’s Commission of Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners Affairs warns.
• The U.N. special representative of the Secretary-General on sexual violence in conflict, is set to visit Israel to look into allegations of sexual violence on October 7. 
• CIA and Mossad officials are reportedly meeting Egyptian and Qatari representatives in coming days to discuss a potential prisoner swap deal and temporary truce.
• Israel continues to shell various areas of Lebanon, the National News Agency reports.
• Maritime trade through the Suez Canal has gone down by nearly half due to Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, U.N. agency reports.
• Israeli state airline El Al is canceling flights to South Africa. 

ICJ rules overwhelmingly in favor of South Africa but stops short of calling for a ceasefire

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to take all measures to prevent genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, in a ruling on Friday that stopped short of calling for an immediate ceasefire but otherwise marked a momentous acknowledgment of the plausibility of South Africa’s claims of genocide against Israel.

ICJ President Joan Donoghue read out the decision, which stated that the court had jurisdiction to rule in this case – likely paving the way for a longer-term case – and issued provisional measures ordering Israel to report back within one month to show it had taken measures to protect Palestinians, punish incitement to genocide, and allow in humanitarian aid in Gaza. 

South Africa, which brought the case in front of the court, will be allowed to respond to Israel’s report in front of the ICJ, and potentially challenge its claims if it believes Tel Aviv is not abiding by the court’s order.

Mondoweiss will be delving more in-depth into the ruling and its ramifications.

Israel has repeatedly made clear since the initial hearings on the case earlier this month that it would not abide by the ICJ ruling – but the decision will likely make it more difficult for Tel Aviv to argue its case on the international stage, and put its staunchest ally, the United States, which is also a signatory to the Genocide Convention, in an even more uncomfortable position.

Controversial American lawyer Alan Dershowitz, who had initially been considered to help represent Israel in front of the ICJ, had said earlier this week that Israel had made a mistake in recognizing the court’s legitimacy in the first place.

“It is not a real court. It’s a court whose judges are picked by their countries, it reflects foreign policy, not rule of law, not judiciary,” Dershowitz told Ynet on Wednesday. “I think that Israel made a mistake in submitting to the jurisdiction of the court, and it would make a mistake in complying with any ruling of the court. This is one of the most absurd abuses of the judicial process in modern history.”

“If the decision is in favour of provisional measures, there will be an implementation crisis and there will be a tug of war as to whether this ruling will be implemented and enforced and complied with by Israel,” Richard Falk, former UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, told Al Jazeera ahead of the ruling, as he called the situation in Gaza “the most transparent genocide in human history.”

On Friday, the Palestinian Authority welcomed the ruling.

“The ICJ judges assessed the facts and the law. They ruled in favor of humanity and international law,” the P.A. Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. “The ICJ order is an important reminder that no state is above the law. It should serve as a wake-up call for Israel and actors who enabled its entrenched impunity.”

“Palestine reaffirms its eternal gratitude to the people and government of South Africa for taking this bold step of active solidarity and will continue to work closely with South Africa and other countries to ensure that justice is served,” the statement added.

Hamas also welcomed the decision, with senior official Sami Abu Zuhri telling Reuters that it was isolating Israel and exposing its crimes in Gaza.

“We call for forcing the occupation to implement the court’s decisions,” he adds.

South Africa meanwhile welcomed Friday’s news as a “decisive victory.” 

“Today marks a decisive victory for the international rule of law and a significant milestone in the search for justice for the Palestinian people,” its government said in a statement. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video statement that his country was fighting a “just war like no other,” while continuing to claim Israel was abiding by international law.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry repeated its claims that the case at the ICJ was “baseless.”

“The charge of genocide levelled against Israel at the International Court of Justice is false and outrageous. It constitutes a shameful exploitation of the Genocide Convention that is not only wholly unfounded in fact and law, but morally repugnant,” spokesman Lior Haiat wrote.

Far-right Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir issued his own eloquent response to serious allegations of genocide.

“Hague-schmague,” he wrote on X.

Gaza: Israeli forces kill Palestinians waiting for aid, as Khan Younis hospital runs out of food

The looming ICJ ruling hadn’t stopped Israel from continuing its relentless assault on Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours.

Amid the endless reports of atrocities over more than three months, Israeli forces fired on thousands of Palestinians waiting to receive humanitarian aid at the al-Kuwait roundabout in Gaza City on Thursday, killing 20 people and injuring 500 more, the Gaza Ministry of Health reported, calling the incident a “horrific massacre.” The ministry spokesman, Ashraf al-Qidra, noted that dozens of those injured were in critical condition, and could succumb to their wounds due to the lack of proper medical resources at the Al-Shifa Medical Complex where they were taken.

“The killing of citizens gathered to wait for aid in Gaza City by the [Israeli] occupation forces is a war crime and genocide,” the Palestinian Follow-up Committee for the National and Islamic Forces said in a statement on Thursday. “The Follow-up Committee holds the United Nations and all international and regional parties responsible for the crimes committed by the occupation in delaying aid, complicating its entry, and depriving our people of their most basic rights to life.”

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the Israeli army had “reportedly opened an investigation into the incident” – which does not guarantee that those responsible will be held accountable, given the Israeli military’s longstanding “culture of impunity.” 

Meanwhile, Israel continues to rain bombs across Gaza, hitting the areas of al-Bureij, Khan Younis, al-Zawaida, and al-Nuseirat refugee camp, WAFA news agency reported. OCHA meanwhile reported that al-Mawasi – a barren strip of land Israeli forces had previously ordered Palestinians to flee to, guaranteeing it would be a “safe zone” – was also “under heavy attack.”

The Gaza Ministry of Health reported that Israeli forces killed at least 183 Palestinians and injured 377 others in the span of 24 hours – bringing the total estimated toll to 26,083 killed and 64,487 wounded. 

Meanwhile, the Israeli army continues to push Palestinians into smaller and smaller areas of land, as it called on Friday for people in some neighborhoods of Khan Younis and the eponymous refugee camp to evacuate to al-Mawasi, which itself has been repeatedly bombarded.

The humanitarian crisis in Gaza continues to defy description, as Israeli forces keep encircling medical facilities in Khan Younis, including Nasser Hospital and Al-Amal Hospital. The Gaza Ministry of Health said on Friday that Nasser Hospital had “ completely run out of food, anesthetics, and painkillers” after five days of siege, leaving its 150 medical staff, 350 patients, and hundreds of people seeking shelter within its walls at risk of starvation and death.

Meanwhile, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor warned of a growing number of children and elderly, including five-month-old Jamal Mahmoud al-Kafarna, who are dying from hunger. “Israel is using starvation as a weapon in its genocidal war against the Gazan people,” the group denounced.

The Gaza Ministry of Health estimates that some 600,000 people still stranded in the northern Gaza Strip are “exposed to death as a result of famine, the spread of diseases, and Israeli bombing.”

The U.N. meanwhile reported that, based on satellite imagery, nearly all Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) facilities in the northern Gaza Strip had been fully or partially destroyed – citing an estimated 87 percent in the Gaza governorate, where Gaza City is located, and 82 percent in the northern governorate. These estimates come as the Palestinian Authority’s Environmental Quality Authority estimates that two-thirds of Palestinians in Gaza suffer from water-borne diseases.

With the arrival of several cold, low-pressure fronts on Palestine starting, the P.A. Civil Defense has warned of torrential rains and strong winds over the next week, which will further worsen the already catastrophic living conditions for the more than 1.7 million internally displaced Palestinians in Gaza.

Meanwhile, Israeli protesters are blocking for the third day in a row the entry of aid into Gaza from the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel. At the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, the World Food Programme was meanwhile reporting that more than 21,000 metric tons of food were stuck waiting to enter Gaza pending Israeli approval.

“There are six more mobile storage units in another warehouse over the road. One is for temperature-sensitive items – medicine, vaccines, insulin,” WFP head of communications Suzanne Fenton wrote. “The others store items rejected by Israeli authorities on the other side because they are deemed to be ‘dual use’: generators, crutches, field hospital kits, inflatable water tanks, wooden boxes of children’s toys and, perhaps most depressingly, 600 oxygen tanks.”

World Health Organization (WHO) head Tedros Ghebreyesus broke down on Thursday during a meeting of the WHO Executive Board in Geneva, saying the situation in Gaza was “hellish” and “beyond words.”

“I’m a true believer because of my own experience that war doesn’t bring solutions, except more war, more hatred, more agony, more destruction. So let’s choose peace and resolve this issue politically,” he said.

His words prompted Meirav Elon, Israel’s permanent representative to the United Nations, to accuse the WHO of “collusion” with Hamas.

While the Israeli army claims that Hamas is “collapsing within its own tunnels,” Palestinian armed groups reported ongoing fighting in the past 24 hours in the areas of Gaza City, al-Bureij, Khan Younis, al-Maghazi, and Beit Hanoun – some of them areas where Israel had previously claimed were under its full control.

The Israeli army is meanwhile seeking to create a “buffer zone” in Gaza by destroying buildings within one kilometer of the demarcation fence with Israel. “[This] means cutting off approximately 20 percent of [Gaza’s] area and destroying thousands of homes and agricultural lands,” Palestine Liberation Organization Secretary-General Hussein al-Sheikh wrote on X. “We call on the countries of the world and the U.N. Security Council to stop these occupation measures and demand that Israel withdraws immediately and stop its destructive war against the Palestinian people.”

Israeli forces and settlers attack Palestinians in the West Bank

The situation remains tense in the occupied West Bank, with confrontations reported between Israeli forces and Palestinians in Jenin refugee camp, Arraba, Tubas, Barqa, and Qalandia since Thursday.

According to WAFA news agency, Israeli forces injured four Palestinians, including an ambulance driver, during a violent overnight raid in the Jenin-area village of Fahma. Israeli soldiers also attacked cleaning crews in Jericho, confiscating waste collection vehicles and closing all entrances to the city.

Israeli settlers continue to attack Palestinians, their livestock, and property in the West Bank with impunity, most recently killing a camel belonging to Palestinians in the village of al-Rashayida. Israeli authorities meanwhile notified a Bedouin community in the area of occupied East Jerusalem that 11 structures in the village of Abu Nawar would be demolished.

With more than 7,000 Palestinians currently detained in abysmal conditions by Israel, the Israeli Negev prison has turned into an “unbearable hell,” the P.A.’s Commission of Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners Affairs warned on Thursday.

U.S., Israeli officials meeting with Egyptian and Qatari negotiators to hash out hostage deal

Despite Netanyahu maintaining his combative stance on the diplomatic stage, the heads of the Israeli and U.S. intelligence agencies were reportedly meeting with Egyptian and Qatari mediators in Europe in coming days to discuss a potential truce and hostage swap deal.

Israeli officials have taken repeated swipes at Qatar, which was instrumental in negotiating the November hostage swap deal, in recent days.

“Qatar is the biggest obstacle to returning the hostages,” Finance Minister and far-right extremist settler Bezalel Smotrich said on Thursday. Earlier this week, a recording of Netanyahu telling the families of Israeli hostages that Qatar was “worse” than the U.N. and the Red Cross, accusing Doha of funding Hamas, was leaked with the approval of the premier’s office, sparking Qatari anger.

Elsewhere, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said freight going through the Suez Canal had fallen by nearly half in the span of two months since Yemen’s Ansar Allah rebel group, also known as the Houthis, have begun targeting maritime trade in solidarity with Palestine.

Sixteen international humanitarian and human rights agencies have meanwhile signed a call to all U.N. member states to “immediately halt the transfer of weapons, parts, and ammunition to Israel and Palestinian armed groups while there is risk they are used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian or human rights law.” 

And yet, Israeli officials confirmed on Thursday that Tel Aviv had secured “top priority” delivery of American attack helicopters and fighter jets, further cementing Washington’s complicity in the catastrophe unfolding in Palestine – and potential landing the U.S. in hot water following the ICJ decision.