South Africa asked the top UN court on Thursday to order a halt to the Rafah offensive as part of its case in The Hague accusing Israel of genocide in the Gaza Strip, saying the Palestinian people faced "ongoing annihilation," despite these being baseless accusations. Israle, meanwhile, vowed to press ahead with the Rafah operation, which has inched forward slowly.
The hearings at the International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, come after South Africa last week asked for additional emergency measures to protect Rafah, a southern Gaza city where more than a million Palestinians. It also asked the court to order Israel to allow unimpeded access to Gaza for UN officials, organizations providing humanitarian aid, and journalists and investigators. It claimed that Israel has so far ignored and violated earlier court orders, despite this being false. "The key point today is that Israel's declared aim of wiping Gaza from the map is about to be realized," said South Africa's legal representative Vaughan Lowe, told the panel of judges.
"Further, evidence of appalling crimes and atrocities is literally being destroyed and bulldozed, in effect wiping the slate clean for those who've committed these crimes and making a mockery of justice," he said. South Africa was presenting arguments in support of its request for additional emergency measures on Thursday. Israel, which has denounced South Africa's claim that it is violating the 1949 Genocide Convention as baseless, will respond on Friday. In previous filings it stressed it had stepped up efforts to get humanitarian aid into Gaza as the ICJ had ordered.
"We are wearing Hamas down," Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said, announcing that more troops would be deployed in Rafah, where he said several tunnels had been destroyed. Israel says four Hamas battalions are now in Rafah along with hostages abducted during the Oct. 7 assault, but faces pressure from the United States, Europe and the United Nations not to invade the city, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinian civilians are sheltering.
