JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel believes that the International Court of Justice’s order to halt its military offensive on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip leaves room for military action there, Israeli officials said.
In an emergency ruling in the case against South Africa accusing Israel of genocide, International Court of Justice judges on Friday ordered Israel to immediately halt its attack on Rafah, where it says it is eradicating Hamas fighters.
“They are asking us not to commit genocide in Rafah. We have not committed genocide and we will not commit genocide,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi told Israeli television channel N12 on Saturday.
Asked whether the Rafah offensive would continue, Hanegbi said: “Under international law, we have the right to defend ourselves and the facts show that the court does not prevent us from continuing to defend ourselves.”
The ICJ, based in The Hague, did not initially comment on Hanegbi’s statements. Hamas also did not initially comment.
Another Israeli official pointed to the wording of the International Court of Justice’s ruling, which it described as conditional.
“The order regarding the Rafah operation is not a general order,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
Reading out the ruling, ICJ President Nawaf Salam said the situation in Gaza had deteriorated since the court last called on Israel to take steps to improve it and that the conditions for a new emergency decree had been met.
“The State of Israel should (…) immediately cease its military offensive and all other actions in Rafah province that could impose living conditions on Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip that could lead to their total or partial physical annihilation,” Salam said.
This wording does not rule out any military action, the Israeli official said.
“We have never and will never carry out military actions in Rafah or elsewhere that could alter living conditions to an extent that would lead to the destruction of the civilian population in the Gaza Strip, either in whole or in part,” the official said.
Although the court has no way of enforcing its orders, the case is a sign of Israel’s growing diplomatic isolation over its crackdown on the Palestinian armed group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Israel began its offensive in the Gaza Strip to destroy Hamas after Hamas-led militants entered southern Israeli communities on October 7 last year. Since the ICJ ruling, Israel has continued its offensive.
The offensive killed nearly 36,000 Palestinians and devastated large parts of the Gaza Strip, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. According to Israeli sources, about 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage on October 7.
(Reporting by Maayan Lubell, editing by Timothy HeritagehERITAGE)
