South Africa urges ICJ to order Gaza ceasefire, halt Israel’s Rafah assault
Al Jazeera
As Israel escalates assault on crowded southern city of Rafah, lawyers tell court, ‘If Rafah falls, so too does Gaza.’
South Africa has urged the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to order Israel to halt its assault on Rafah as part of its case accusing Israel of genocide against the Palestinians.
South Africa, which filed its case in January over Israel’s war on Gaza, is seeking additional emergency measures over its offensive on Rafah, a city in the southern Gaza Strip where more than one million displaced Palestinians had sought shelter from Israeli attacks on other parts of the enclave.
It told the court in The Hague on Thursday that the Palestinian people are facing “ongoing annihilation” and the assault on Rafah was “part of the endgame in which Gaza is utterly destroyed”.
Israel is pressing on with its attacks in Rafah despite “explicit warnings” that they could carry “genocidal” consequences, South African lawyer Tembeka Ngcukaitobi said.
Israel, which has rejected South Africa’s claim that it is violating the 1949 Genocide Convention as baseless, will respond on Friday.
