The International Court of Justice has ordered Israel to take all possible measures to stop the massacre in Gaza. The United Nations Supreme Court announced the verdict on Friday against Israel on charges of genocide in Gaza.
It is a landmark judgment closely watched in the Middle East and around the world.
Israel launched this unprecedented retaliatory attack on Gaza after Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel on October 7.
The highest court of the United Nations has decided that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has the jurisdiction to take into account the charges brought by South Africa of Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza.
The ICJ also rejected Israel’s request to dismiss the case made by South Africa.
The chief judge of this court said that according to the Genocide Convention, any state can come to the ICJ with a complaint against another state. South Africa has legal jurisdiction to sue the Gaza situation in this court.
On October 7 last year, fighters of the Palestinian group Hamas, which controls Gaza, suddenly entered Israel and attacked, killing 1,200 people and taking at least 250 hostages.
Since that day, Israel has launched a massive military operation in Gaza, which is still ongoing. According to Gaza’s health ministry, more than 26,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, have been killed in Israeli attacks so far. Besides, several thousand were injured.
The case was filed by South Africa. It said Israel was in violation of the 1948 UN Genocide Convention, which set a precedent even higher than World War II and the Holocaust.
Juliet McIntyre, an international law expert at the University of South Australia, said, “South Africa does not need to prove that Israel is committing genocide.”
“They only need to establish that there is a probable risk of genocide,” he said.
