‘Hague schmague’: Minister dismisses world court after it says Israel must take measures to prevent genocide in Gaza
An international court has demanded that Israel should do everything in its power to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza – but stopped short of ordering an end to its offensive.
The ruling by judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) comes at an early stage in South Africa’s case alleging that Israel’s military action in its war with Hamas in Gaza is genocidal.
South Africa welcomed the measures describing the ruling as a “decisive victory for the international rule of law”; while Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, posted on X saying: “Hague schmague”.
The court ruled it has jurisdiction to hear arguments and it therefore denied Israel’s request that it throws out the case.
It ordered Israel to take all measures within its power to prevent genocide and report back to the court within one month.
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What exactly is genocide – and how do you define it?
South Africa filed the case, arguing Israel is breaching the UN convention on genocide by “killing Palestinians in Gaza, causing them serious bodily and mental harm, and inflicting on them conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction”.
Follow live: ICJ dismisses Israel’s request for case to be thrown out
Israel avoids worst outcome but not unscathed
Israel will be relieved that the ruling does not take a position on South Africa’s central claim that it is committing genocide in Gaza.
Instead, it says it must do everything it can to avoid its forces doing so.
But it is under huge pressure now over the humanitarian situation in Gaza which the court is clearly deeply concerned about and describes as verging on catastrophic.
The judges were clearly vexed by the allegedly genocidal statements made by senior Israeli officials which South Africa claims showed an intent to commit genocide.
Again, the ruling dodges taking a position on that claim but it does order Israel to prevent and punish all genocidal statements.
Israel has avoided the worst outcome with this ruling, but its reputation hardly emerges unscathed in a ruling handed down by the UN’s highest court.
While the 17 judges consider the genocide allegations – which may take years to rule on – South Africa asked the court “as a matter of extreme urgency” to issue an interim order compelling Israel to suspend military operations to protect Palestinians in Gaza while the case proceeds slowly through the court.
“The court is acutely aware of the extent of the human tragedy that is unfolding in the region and is deeply concerned about the continuing loss of life and human suffering,” Joan Donoghue, the court’s president, said.
In the ruling, 15 of the 17 judges on the panel voted for emergency measures which covered most of what South Africa asked for, with the notable exception of a halt to military action in Gaza.
Judges in The Hague
Protesters gather outside the International Court of Justice. Pic: Piroschka van de Wouw/Reuters
Palestinians have welcomed the provisional measures ordered by the court, with foreign minister Riyad al Maliki saying: “The ICJ judges assessed the facts and the law, they ruled in favour of humanity and international law.”
Mr Maliki added that the Palestinian authority called on all states to ensure the measures ordered by the court are implemented “including by Israel, the occupying power”.
Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said: “The International Court of Justice ruling is an important development that contributes to isolating the occupation and exposing its crimes in Gaza.
“We call for compelling the occupation to implement the court’s decisions.”
Benjamin Netanyahu @IsraeliPM
Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticised the case as “outrageous” and vowed to continue the military action.
“We will continue to do what is necessary to defend our country and defend our people,” he said.
“Like every country, Israel has an inherent right to defend itself.
“The vile attempt to deny Israel this fundamental right is blatant discrimination against the Jewish state, and it was justly rejected.”
South Africa’s Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor Pic: AP
The country’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, in response to the ruling posted on X saying: “Hague schmague”.
South Africa welcomed the ruling, and said it “will continue to do everything within its power to preserve the existence of the Palestinian people as a group, to end all acts of apartheid and genocide against the Palestinian people and to walk with them towards the realisation of their collective right to self-determination, for, as Nelson Mandela momentously declared, ‘our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians’.”
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ICJ President Judge Joan Donoghue says Israel must take measures to prevent the killing of Palestinians.
Speaking at outside the court, South Africa’s minister of international relations and cooperation Naledi Pador said: “We believe the moment is now right to open negotiations for a two-state solution to end this conflict decisively.”
She added that she believed in order to implement the order Israel would have to instigate a ceasefire.
“How do you provide aid and water without a ceasefire? If you read the order, by implication a ceasefire must happen,” she said.
The ICJ’s rulings are final and without appeal, but it has no way of enforcing them.
New pictures show the moment of impact as an Israeli missile hit a Beirut apartment block and exploded.
The block was one of five buildings destroyed by airstrikes on Friday alone.
Israel launched airstrikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut in a fourth consecutive day of intense attacks.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press photographer captured a sequence of images showing an Israeli bomb approaching and hitting a multi-storey apartment building in Beirut’s Tayouneh area.
Richard Weir, a senior crisis, conflict and arms researcher at Human Rights Watch, reviewed the close-up photos to determine what type of weapon was used.
“The bomb and components visible in the photographs, including the strake, wire harness cover, and tail fin section, are consistent with a Mk-84 series 2,000-pound class general purpose bomb equipped with Boeing’s joint directed attack munition tail kit,” he told AP.
Pics: AP
Smoke covers a building that collapses following the strike. Pic: AP
Deadly strikes as bombardment stepped up
Israel stepped up its bombardment this week – an escalation that has coincided with signs of movement in US-led diplomacy towards a ceasefire.
The Israeli military said its fighter jets attacked munitions warehouses, a headquarters and other Hezbollah infrastructure. It issued a warning on social media identifying buildings ahead of the strikes.
Meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike killed five members of the same family in a home in Ain Qana in the southern province of Nabatiyeh, Lebanon’s state media said.
The report said a mother, father and their three children were killed but didn’t provide their ages.
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Three other Israeli strikes killed six people and wounded 32 in different parts of Tyre province on Friday, also in south Lebanon, the report said.
Video footage also showed a building being struck and turning into a cloud of rubble and debris that billowed into Horsh Beirut, the city’s main park.
Residents check the site of the airstrike in Tayouneh, Beirut. Pic: AP
More than 3,200 people have been killed in Lebanon during 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah – most of them since mid-September.
About 27% of those killed were women and children, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Israel dramatically escalated its bombardment of Lebanon from September, vowing to cripple Hezbollah and end its barrages in Israel.
Friday’s strikes come as Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister has asked Iran to help secure a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
The prime minister appeared to urge Ali Larijani, a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, to convince the militant group to agree to a deal that could require it to pull back from the Israel-Lebanon border.
Iran is a main backer of Hezbollah and for decades has been funding and arming the Lebanese militant group.
On Thursday, Eli Cohen, Israel’s energy minister and a member of its security cabinet, said that prospects for a ceasefire with Lebanon were the most promising since the conflict began.
The Washington Post reported Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was rushing to advance a Lebanon ceasefire to deliver an early foreign policy win to his ally, US President-elect Donald Trump.
“Super high-IQ revolutionaries” who are willing to work 80+ hours a week are being urged to join Elon Musk’s new cost-cutting department in Donald Trump’s incoming US government.
The X and Tesla owner will co-lead the Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
And in a post on X, the official DOGE account put out a call to arms for people to sign up and help “dismantle government bureaucracy”.
The post said: “We are very grateful to the thousands of Americans who have expressed interest in helping us at DOGE.
“We don’t need more part-time idea generators.
“We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting.
“If that’s you, DM this account with your CV. Elon & Vivek will review the top 1% of applicants.”
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Elon Musk speaking at an event held at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Pic: AP Photo/Alex Brandon
In a reply to an interested party, Mr Musk suggested the lucky applicants would be working for free.
“Indeed, this will be tedious work, make lost of enemies & compensation is zero,” the world’s richest man wrote.
“What a great deal!”
When announcing the new department, President-elect Donald Trump said Mr Musk and Mr Ramaswamy “will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies”.
Mr Musk has previously made clear his desire to see cuts to “government waste” and in a post on his X platform suggested he could axe as many as three-quarters of the more than 400 federal departments in the US, writing: “99 is enough.”
At least 10 people have been killed after a fire broke out at a retirement home in northern Spain in the early hours of this morning, officials have said.
A further two people were seriously injured in the blaze at the residence in the town of Villafranca de Ebro in Zaragoza, according to the Spanish news website Diario Sur.
Two people remain in a critical condition following the blaze. Pic: AP
They remain in a critical condition, while several others received treatment for smoke inhalation.
Firefighters were alerted to the blaze at the residence – the Jardines de Villafranca – at 5am (4am UK time) on Friday.
Several residents were treated for smoke inhalation. Pic: AP
Those who were killed in the fire died from smoke inhalation, Spanish newspaper Heraldo reported.
The residence is home to 82 elderly residents.
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The blaze started in one of the rooms, Fernando Beltran, the national government’s top official in the region, told reporters.
All of the victims were elderly residents, he added.
Relatives wait for news outside the care home. Pic: AP
Fire crews, paramedics and police officers remain on site, said a spokesperson for the regional government of Aragon who confirmed the fatalities.
It took firefighters several hours to extinguish the blaze, they said.
The cause of the fire is unknown and is being investigated.
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