World court ruling today on Israel-Hamas conflict

Sandeep Dikshit

New Delhi, January 25

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) said it will rule on Friday whether to announce emergency measures against Israel in a case filed by South Africa and supported by at least 70 countries accusing Tel Aviv of genocide in Gaza.

South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor is leading a delegation to hear the ICJ’s provisional measures. In a lawsuit filed on December 29 last year, South Africa has requested for interim injunctions, including an immediate halt to Israel’s military operations in Gaza and access to humanitarian assistance such as adequate food, water, fuel and medicines.

For the present, the 17-judge ICJ jury will not deal with the main question of whether Israel is committing genocide in violation of the 1948 Genocide Convention.

After the hearings on January 11 and 12, the ICJ had said it will deliver a ruling “as soon as possible”. The court may not order exactly what South Africa has requested but its intention will be to prevent a dispute from getting worse while the court looks at the full case, which could take several years.

Apart from Russia and China, at least 65 countries from the non-aligned bloc have backed South Africa’s case at the ICJ. India has not commented on the case.

On January 11, the South African legal team had given accounts of atrocities being committed in Gaza. The next day, the Israeli legal team had questioned the ICJ’s jurisdiction and said there were no conditions for the ICJ to rule on provisional measures. It also accused South Africa of collaborating with Hamas.

Israel often boycotts international tribunals and UN investigations, saying they are unfair and biased. But the country’s leaders sent a high-level legal team to two days of hearings earlier this month — a sign of how seriously they regard the case and and an indication of likely concerns that any court order to halt operations would be a major blow to the country’s international standing.