ICJ must order Gaza ceasefire, halt of Rafah assault

Tehran, Qodsna - South Africa, which filed its case in January over the 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 Zionist 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”.

The Zionist regime is pressing on with its attacks in Rafah despite “explicit warnings” that they could carry “genocidal” consequences, South African lawyer Tembeka Ngcukaitobi said.

The Zionist regime, which has rejected South Africa’s claim that it is violating the 1949 Genocide Convention as baseless, will respond on Friday.

Minutes before the court hearings opened, Zionist war minister Yoav Gallant said the widely criticized operation in Rafah “will continue as additional forces will enter” the area.

Rafah is a tiny, overcrowded city where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have taken shelter in tents and are facing the rapid spread of diseases and a severe lack of food and clean water. The only hospital in the area has shut down, leaving only a small facility that has been overwhelmed.

Judges at the ICJ have previously issued provisional measures, ordering the Zionist regime to take actions to limit humanitarian suffering in Gaza.