Hamas, South Africa welcome 'stronger' ICJ order on Israel

JOHANNESBURG/GAZA (AFP) - South Africa and Hamas on Friday welcomed an order by the International Court of Justice to Israel to halt its offensive in the Gaza city of Rafah, and urged UN member states to back it.

Hamas hailed the UN top court's ruling for Israel to immediately halt its Rafah offensive but criticised its decision to exclude the rest of war-torn Gaza from the order.

The Palestinian militant group ‘welcomes the decision of the International Court of Justice’, it said in a statement, adding however that it expected the ICJ ruling to "put an end to the aggression and genocide against our people throughout the Gaza Strip, and not just in Rafah".

"I believe it's a much stronger, in terms of wording, set of provisional measures, a very clear call for a cessation," Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor told public broadcaster SABC.

South Africa has brought a case before the ICJ alleging the Israeli military operation in Gaza, launched in response to the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas militants, amounts to "genocide".

The court is considering that case, but in the interim has brought in "preliminary measures" ordering Israel do everything it could to prevent acts of genocide during its campaign against Hamas.

Israel has nevertheless pursued its operation, notably in assaulting the refugee-packed city of Rafah, and South Africa requested Friday's ruling on further interim orders. Pandor said South Africa was "really pleased" that the court had heeded its call and argued that its case "is getting stronger and stronger by the day, that a genocide is underway".

But she warned that Israel is unlikely to heed the order, arguing it was time for UN members and the Security Council to step up and enforce international law. "Israel has had impunity for so long that they don't care what the global community says," she said.

"So I think the responsibility goes to us a member states of the United Nations and most particularly to the Security Council," she said.

"It is clear we are all fearful. We are all seeing the horror unfold and something needs to be done and we cannot just rely on those who are the executioners of this ongoing onslaught to be the ones to stop it."