Israel denies genocide taking place in Gaza
Israel on Friday defended the military necessity of its Gaza offensive at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) after South Africa asked judges to order it to halt operations in Rafah and completely withdraw from the Palestinian territory.
Reuters reports that Israeli justice ministry official Gilad Noam called South Africa’s case, which accuses Israel of violating the genocide convention, “completely divorced from facts and circumstances”.
According to Reuters, before Israel’s presentation at the ICJ, several dozen pro-Israeli protesters gathered outside, displaying photographs of hostages taken by Hamas on 7 October and demanding their release.
On Thursday, South Africa’s ambassador to the Netherlands, Vusimuzi Madonsela, requested the court to order Israel to “immediately, totally and unconditionally, withdraw the Israeli army from the entirety of the Gaza Strip.”
The South African legal team framed the Israeli military operation as part of a genocidal plan aimed at bringing about the destruction of the Palestinian people.
In past rulings, the court has rejected Israel’s demands to dismiss the case and ordered it to prevent acts of genocide against the Palestinians, while stopping short of ordering it to halt the assault.
On Friday Noam told the ICJ that there is a “tragic war going on but no genocide”. “This war, like all wars, is tragic. For Israelis and Palestinians and it has exacted a terrible human price but it is not genocide,” he said.
Key events
Israeli forces battled Hamas fighters in the narrow alleyways of Jabalia in northern Gaza on Friday in some of the fiercest engagements since they returned to the area a week ago, while in the south militants attacked tanks massing around Rafah, reports Reuters.
According to a report by the news agency, residents said Israeli armour had thrust as far as the market at the heart of Jabalia, the largest of Gaza’s eight historic refugee camps, and that bulldozers were demolishing homes and shops in the path of the advance.
As fighting raged in the north and south of the territory, the US military said trucks carrying humanitarian assistance had started moving ashore from a temporary pier in Gaza on Friday morning.
“Israel’s focus is Jabalia now, tanks and planes are wiping out residential districts and markets, shops, restaurants, everything. It is all happening before the one-eyed world,” Ayman Rajab, a resident of western Jabalia, told Reuters.
“Shame on the world. Meanwhile, the Americans are going to get us some food,” Rajab, a father-of-four, told Reuters via a chat app. “We want no food, we want this war to end and then we can manage our lives on our own.”
According to Reuters, Israel had said its forces had cleared Jabalia months earlier in the Gaza war, but said last week it was returning to prevent Hamas re-establishing itself there.
The fighting has coincided with the assault on Rafah at the southern edge of the strip, sending hundreds of thousands of people fleeing from both ends of the territory at once.
Further to the reports of Israeli airstrikes on Friday that hit an area of southern Lebanon far from the border (see 11.16 BST), there has been an update on the three people reported killed.
According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), Hezbollah announced a fighter from Najjariyeh had died. Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) said two Syrian children were killed in the Najjariyeh strike, identifying them as Osama and Hani al-Khaled.
The Kuwaiti Speciality hospital is one of the few places in Rafah the wounded or dying can turn for care, but that role may come under unbearable pressure if Israel launches a full-scale advance into the southern Gaza city, doctors there say.
Reuters reports staff at the Kuwaiti Speciality hospital say they fear such an assault would produce a crush of new patients that would overwhelm exhausted doctors, who already complain of shortages of medicine and proper equipment.
“We have been here from the start of the war until now, and I do hope they will not target us, they will not threaten us,” doctor Jamal al-Hams told Reuters.
“I do hope the whole medical team will continue to present its services to the injured people, to the critically ill patients, to the people who have chronic diseases,” he added.
Deir al-Balah is ‘now unbearably crowded’ as Palestinians seek refuge from Rafah, says Unrwa
More than 630,000 people have been forced to flee Rafah since Israel’s military offensive on the area started on the 6 May, said the UN agency for Palestine refugees (Unrwa) on Friday.
In a social media post on X, Unrwa said that many Palestinians had “sought refuge” in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, and described it as “now unbearably overcrowded with dire conditions”.
Unrwa reiterated its plea for an immediate ceasefire.
The people of #Gaza continue to be forcibly displaced.
Since the military offensive on #Rafah started 6 May, over 630,000 people have been forced to flee the area.
Many have sought refuge in Deir al-Balah, which is now unbearably overcrowded with dire conditions. #CeasefireNow pic.twitter.com/Y0IJB5nTHb
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) May 17, 2024
Here are some of the latest images from the newswires:
Israeli airstrikes on Friday hit an area of southern Lebanon far from the border, Lebanese official media said, with a source close to Hezbollah reporting three dead including two Syrian nationals.
According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) said “Israeli strikes targeted Najjariyeh and Addousiyeh”, two adjacent villages about 30 kilometres (19 miles) from the Israeli border just south of the coastal city of Sidon. The NNA reported “victims” without elaborating.
A source close to Hezbollah told AFP that three people were killed in Najjariyeh – two Syrians and a Lebanese man.
An AFP photographer saw ambulances heading to the targeted sites, saying the strikes hit a pickup truck in Najjariyeh and an orchard.
Hezbollah announced on Friday that it had launched “attack drones” on Israeli military positions. It came a day after the Lebanese group said it had attacked an army position in Metula, a border town in northern Israel, wounding three soldiers, reports AFP.
Hezbollah said the attack was carried out with an “attack drone carrying two S5 rockets”, which are normally launched from jets.
Also on Thursday the group announced the deaths of two of its fighters in Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon. The NNA said they were killed when their car was targeted.
Hezbollah earlier on Thursday said it had launched dozens of Katyusha rockets at Israeli positions in the annexed Golan Heights.
AFP reports that Israel retaliated with overnight air raids on Lebanon’s eastern Baalbek region, a Hezbollah stronghold near the Syrian border.
Earlier this week Hezbollah said it had targeted an Israeli base near Tiberias, about 30 kilometres from the Lebanese border – one of the group’s deepest attacks into Israeli territory since clashes began on 8 October.
The Wednesday strike came a day after the death of a Hezbollah member, which Israel said was a field commander, in an attack on southern Lebanon.
The cross-border fighting has killed at least 418 people in Lebanon, mostly militants but also including 80 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
Israel says 14 soldiers and 10 civilians have been killed on its side of the border.
Western nations urge Israel to comply with international law in Gaza
Israel must comply with international law in Gaza and address the devastating humanitarian crisis there, a group of western nations wrote in a letter to the Israeli government seen by Reuters on Friday.
All countries belonging to the G7, apart from the US, signed the letter, along with Australia, South Korea, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Finland.
The five-page letter comes as Israeli forces bear down on the southern Gaza city of Rafah as part of its drive to eradicate Hamas, despite warnings this could result in mass casualties in an area where displaced civilians have found shelter.
“In exerting its right to defend itself, Israel must fully comply with international law, including international humanitarian law,” Reuters quotes the letter as saying. It also reiterates “outrage” for the 7 October Hamas attack.
Israel denies blocking humanitarian aid and says it needs to eliminate Hamas for its own protection.
According to Reuters, the western nations said they were opposed to “a full-scale military operation in Rafah” and called on Israel to let humanitarian aid reach the population “through all relevant crossing points, including the one in Rafah”.
“According to UN estimates, an intensified military offensive would affect approximately 1.4 million people,” the letter said, underscoring the need “for specific, concrete and measurable steps” to significantly boost the flow of aid.
Reuters reports that the letter recognises Israel made progress in addressing a number of issues, including letting more aid trucks into the Gaza Strip, the reopening of the Erez crossing into northern Gaza and the temporary use of Ashdod port in southern Israel.
But it called on Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to do more, including working towards a “sustainable ceasefire”, facilitating further evacuations and resuming “electricity, water and telecommunication services”.
Hearings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) were briefly interrupted on Friday by a protester who called out “liars” as an Israeli official was presenting arguments.
Reuters reports that a woman was seen being removed by court security guards. Our video team have produced this report:
Israeli justice ministry official Gilad Noam told an International Court of Justice (ICJ) hearing on Friday that South Africa’s charge of genocide was “an obscene exploitation of the most sacred convention,” referring to the international treaty banning genocide, agreed after the Holocaust in the second world war.
The convention requires all countries to act to prevent genocide, and the ICJ, also known as the world court, which hears disputes between states, has concluded that this gives South Africa a right to make the case.
According to Reuters, Noam said that Israel’s military operations were not aimed at civilians, but at Hamas terrorists using Rafah as a stronghold, who have tunnel systems which could be used to smuggle hostages and militants out of Gaza.
Examples of alleged violations by Israel raised by South Africa were “not evidence a policy of illegal behaviour, let alone a policy of genocide”, he said. Ordering Israel to withdraw its troops would sentence remaining hostages in Gaza to death, Noam added.
This week’s hearings focus only on issuing emergency measures and it will probably take years before the court can rule on the underlying genocide charge. A decision on the request for emergency measures is expected next week.
Reuters reports that the ICJ hearing was “briefly interrupted by an anti-Israel protest”.
More details soon …
Israeli settlers attacked and burned a truck in the occupied West Bank overnight on Thursday, injuring the driver, the Israeli military said, days after aid trucks heading towards the Gaza Strip were ransacked by protesters, reports Reuters.
Troops who arrived to separate the settlers from the Israeli driver were attacked and three soldiers were slightly hurt, the military said.
According to Reuters, Israel’s Kan public radio reported that the protesters believed the truck was carrying aid supplies to Gaza. It said the military said the truck was not carrying aid.
Pro-Palestine protesters and University of Melbourne administrators remain in a deadlock despite a warning that police could be called to enter the campus at any time.
As tensions simmer between university administrations and student activists across the nation, those camped inside the Arts West building have defied the University of Melbourne’s demands and the threat of police intervention.
Monash University on Friday said the student encampment on its Clayton campus, in Melbourne’s south-east, had ended, while the University of Queensland has signalled it aims for its pro-Palestine camps to end.
After a meeting held between a handful of University of Melbourne student protesters and two university executives on Friday afternoon, the activists said no resolution was reached. The protesters said their encampment in the Arts West building would continue until their calls for the university to disclose and divest their ties to weapons manufacturers were met.
Dana Alshaer, from the University of Melbourne for Palestine group, was among the group that met with the acting provost, Prof Pip Nicholson, and the deputy vice-chancellor for research, Prof Mark Cassidy.
Alshaer said the protesters had attempted to have an “open dialogue” but the university’s executives had not met their key demands.
You can read more on this story here:
Israel denies genocide taking place in Gaza
Israel on Friday defended the military necessity of its Gaza offensive at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) after South Africa asked judges to order it to halt operations in Rafah and completely withdraw from the Palestinian territory.
Reuters reports that Israeli justice ministry official Gilad Noam called South Africa’s case, which accuses Israel of violating the genocide convention, “completely divorced from facts and circumstances”.
According to Reuters, before Israel’s presentation at the ICJ, several dozen pro-Israeli protesters gathered outside, displaying photographs of hostages taken by Hamas on 7 October and demanding their release.
On Thursday, South Africa’s ambassador to the Netherlands, Vusimuzi Madonsela, requested the court to order Israel to “immediately, totally and unconditionally, withdraw the Israeli army from the entirety of the Gaza Strip.”
The South African legal team framed the Israeli military operation as part of a genocidal plan aimed at bringing about the destruction of the Palestinian people.
In past rulings, the court has rejected Israel’s demands to dismiss the case and ordered it to prevent acts of genocide against the Palestinians, while stopping short of ordering it to halt the assault.
On Friday Noam told the ICJ that there is a “tragic war going on but no genocide”. “This war, like all wars, is tragic. For Israelis and Palestinians and it has exacted a terrible human price but it is not genocide,” he said.
You can follow along with the ICJ hearing via the live stream in the video posted at the top of this page.
Israel asks ICJ to reject South Africa’s withdrawal from Gaza request
Reuters reports that Israel has told the ICJ hearing that it did not want a war with Gaza but is “under attack and fighting to defend itself and its citizens”.
Israel has repeated its claim that Rafah is a “focal point for ongoing terrorist activity” and is a “Hamas stronghold”.
Israel has asked judges to reject a request from South Africa to order its withdrawal from the Palestinian territory.
Israel has told the ICJ hearing that South Africa’s case is “completely divorced from the facts and circumstances” and “makes a mockery of the heinous charge of genocide”.
Israel said it was given less than 24 hours to respond to South Africa’s latest request at the world court.
The second day of a two-day hearing at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague has begun.
South Africa has asked the international court of justice (ICJ) to urgently order Israel to end its assault on Rafah, halt its military campaign across Gaza, and allow international investigators and journalists into the territory (see 08.02 BST).
We will post key lines as they come in via the newswires.
Emily Foster is a globe-trotting journalist based in the UK. Her articles offer readers a global perspective on international events, exploring complex geopolitical issues and providing a nuanced view of the world’s most pressing challenges.
