The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ordered Israel to stop its military offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
The top United Nations court said the humanitarian situation in Rafah had “deteriorated further” since its previous court order for Israel to improve it, adding that what was happening in the besieged Palestinian territory was “disastrous”.
It comes after South Africa put in an emergency request to the ICJ for it to order Israel to stop its Rafah assault.
The ICJ president Nawaf Salam said in The Hague: “The state of Israel shall… immediately halt its military offensive, and any other action in the Rafah governorate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”
The court also ordered Israel to open the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza to allow in humanitarian aid, and said Israel must provide access to the territory for investigators and report back on its progress within a month.
The order was handed down a week after it was requested by South Africa, which in January formally accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in a hearing at the UN court.
Israel, which claims that its military operations in Gaza are in self-defence and targeted at Hamas fighters, has vehemently denied the accusations.
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Israel launched its assault on Rafah this month, forcing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to flee a city that had become a refuge to around half of the population’s 2.3 million people.
The ICJ is the highest UN body for hearing disputes between states, and its rulings are final and binding but have been ignored in the past.
Image: Smoke rises during an Israeli airstrike on Rafah. Pic: Reuters
No enforcement powers
The court has no enforcement powers and Israel is unlikely to comply with the latest ICJ order, which was adopted by a panel of 15 judges from around the world in a 13-2 vote, opposed only by judges from Uganda and Israel.
In response to the judgment, Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said: “Those who demand that the State of Israel stop the war, demand that it decree itself to cease to exist. We will not agree to that. If we lay down our weapons, the enemy will reach the beds of our children and women throughout the country.”
South Africa has welcomed the latest ruling, with Zane Dangor, director general of the Department of International Relations and Cooperation, saying the order was “ground-breaking as it is the first time that explicit mention is made for Israel to halt its military action in any area of Gaza”.
Hamas also welcomed the ruling but said it was insufficient, with senior official Basem Naim saying “we believe it is not enough since the occupation aggression across the Gaza Strip and especially in northern Gaza is just as brutal and dangerous”.
“We call upon the UN Security Council to immediately implement this demand by the World Court into practical measures to compel the Zionist enemy to implement the decision.”
Israel says it has no choice but to attack Rafah to root out the last battalions of Hamas fighters it thinks are hiding there.
Image: Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Yoav Gallant. Pic: Reuters
The Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to both eliminate Hamas and get all the hostages back who were taken in the October 7th attacks.
“Hamas is in Rafah, Hamas has been holding our hostages in Rafah, which is why our forces are manoeuvering in Rafah. We’re doing this in a targeted and precise way,” Israeli chief military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said on Thursday.
But the US – Israel’s most powerful ally – has threatened to scale back its support over the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Prosecutor Karim Khan accused Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant of crimes including extermination, using hunger as a weapon and deliberately attacking civilians. Israel strongly denied the charges.
The Israelis said Hamas killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages in the October 7 raid on southern Israel.
Since then, Israel’s incursion has killed more than 35,000 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza.
Dozens of Palestinians have gathered near the ruins of a mosque destroyed by Israeli airstrikes to perform Eid al Adha prayers.
They were surrounded by the debris and rubble of collapsed houses at the former site of the al Rahma mosque in the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza to mark the start of the major holiday.
Commonly translated as the Feast of Sacrifice, Eid al Adha is the second of the two main Islamic holidays – alongside Eid al Fitr – when better-off Muslims commemorate Ibrahim’s test of faith by slaughtering livestock and animals and distributing some of the meat to the poor.
Image: Palestinians hold prayers by the ruins of the al Rahma mosque.
Pic: Reuters
“Today, after the ninth month, more than 37,000 martyrs, more than 87,000 wounded, and hundreds of thousands of homes were destroyed,” said Abdulhalim Abu Samra, a displaced Palestinian, after prayers in Khan Younis. “Our people live in difficult circumstances.”
In the nearby town of Deir al Balah in central Gaza, Muslims held their prayers in a school-turned-shelter, while some, including women and children, went to cemeteries to visit the graves of loved ones.
Image: The Dome of the Rock shrine at the al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City. Pic: AP
Palestinians also gathered at the al Aqsa compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, in Jerusalem’s Old City, the site of the Dome of the Rock shrine.
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It comes against a the backdrop of the devastating Israel-Hamas war which has pushed the Middle East to the brink of a regional conflict.
The Israeli military has announced a “tactical pause” in its offensive in southern Gaza to allow the deliveries of more humanitarian aid.
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Image: Muslims hold Eid al Adha prayers in Nairobi. Pic: Reuters
Image: Muslim children play in Nairobi, Kenya. Pic: Reuters.
The suspension, which begins as Muslims started marking the major holiday, came after discussions with the United Nations and international aid agencies, the military said.
Image: People attempt to catch balloons released after an Eid al-Adha prayer at a public park, outside El-Seddik Mosque in Cairo, Egypt. Pic: Reuters
Image: Moskovsky central avenue during celebrations in St Petersburg, Russia. Pic: AP
Image: The al Amin mosque in downtown Beirut, Lebanon. Pic: Reuters
Most countries marked Eid al Adha on Sunday, while others, like Indonesia, will celebrate it on Monday.
Cities including Beirut, in Lebanon, Mosul in Iraq and Istanbul, in Turkey crowded with worshippers.
Image: Worshippers in Mosul. Pic: Reuters
In Egypt, balloons were released after prayer at a public park, outside El-Seddik Mosque in Cairo.
Muslims in Russia offered prayers at the Moscow Cathedral Mosque and gathered in Moskovsky central avenue during celebrations in St Petersburg.
The summit was aimed at ending Russia’s war in Ukraine. Moscow was not invited, and its main ally China declined to attend.
Vladimir Putin is not ruling out talks with Ukraine, according to his spokesperson, who said guarantees would be needed to ensure the credibility of any negotiations.
It comes as Kremlin forces in Ukraine claim to have taken control of a village in Zaporizhzhia.
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‘We must bring each and every one of them home’
A joint communique from 80 countries said the UN Charter and “respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty… can and will serve as a basis for achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine”.
“The ongoing war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine continues to cause large-scale human suffering and destruction, and to create risks and crises with global repercussions,” the declaration said.
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Participants India, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Thailand, Indonesia, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates were among those that did not sign up to the final document, which focused on issues of nuclear safety, food security and the exchange of prisoners.
Brazil, which has “observer” status, also did not sign. With China, Brazil has jointly sought to plot alternative routes toward peace.
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Image: Rishi Sunak arrives at the peace conference. Pic: Reuters
Ursula von der Leyen, chief of the European Commission, said this weekend has brought peace closer to Ukraine, but that peace will not be achieved in one step.
“It was not a peace negotiation because Putin is not serious about ending the war, he’s insisting on capitulation, he’s insisting on ceding Ukrainian territory – even territory that today is not occupied,” she said.
Analysts say the two-day conference is likely to have little concrete impact towards ending the war because the country leading and continuing it, Russia, was not invited.
Montenegro Prime Minister Milojko Spajic told the gathering on Sunday: “As a father of three, I’m deeply concerned by thousands of Ukrainian kids forcibly transferred to Russia or Russia-occupied territories of Ukraine.”
“We all at this table need to do more so that children of Ukraine are back in Ukraine,” he added.
Sweden has released a convicted Iranian war criminal as part of a prisoner swap deal.
Tehran and Stockholm carried out the switch, which saw a European Union diplomat and another man released in exchange for Hamid Nouri, who was found guilty of being complicit in the 1988 mass executions in the Islamic Republic.
Nouri was arrested in 2019 as he travelled in Swedenas a tourist.
This likely prompted the detention of the two Swedes, part of a long-running strategy by Iran to use those with ties abroad as bargaining chips in negotiations with the West.
While Iranian state television claimed that Nouri had been “illegally detained”, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said diplomat Johan Floderus and a second Swedish citizen, Saeed Azizi, had been facing a “hell on earth”.
“Iran has made these Swedes pawns in a cynical negotiation game with the aim of getting the Iranian citizen Hamid Nouri released from Sweden,” Mr Kristersson said on Saturday.
“It has been clear all along that this operation would require difficult decisions – now the government has made those decisions.”
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State TV showed film of Nouri limping off a plane at Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran and embracing his family.
“I am Hamid Nouri. I am in Iran,” he said. “God makes me free.”
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Oman mediated the release, its state-run news agency reported.
In 2022, the Stockholm District Court sentenced Nouri to life in prison.
It identified him as an assistant to the deputy prosecutor at the Gohardasht prison outside the Iranian city of Karaj.
The 1988 mass executions came at the end of Iran’s long war with Iraq.
Image: Johan Floderus reunites with his family at Arlanda Airport in Stockholm. Pic: AP
After Iran’s then Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini accepted a United Nations-brokered ceasefire, members of the Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, backed by Saddam Hussein, stormed across the Iranian border in a surprise attack.
Iran ultimately blunted their assault but the attack set the stage for the sham retrials of political prisoners, militants and others that would become known as “death commissions”.
International rights groups estimate that as many as 5,000 people were executed. Iran has never fully acknowledged the executions, apparently carried out on Mr Khomeini’s orders, though some argue that other top officials were effectively in charge in the months before his 1989 death.
Late Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash last month, was also involved in the mass executions.
Image: Saeed Azizi, left, and Johan Floderus at Arlanda Airport. Pic: AP
Mr Floderus was arrested in April 2022 at Tehran airport while returning from a holiday with friends. He had been held for months before his family and others went public about his detention.
Mr Azizi’s case was not as prominent but in February the group Human Rights Activists in Iran reported that the dual Iranian-Swedish national had been sentenced to five years in prison by Tehran’s Revolutionary Court on charges of “assembly and collusion against national security”.