ICJ orders Israel to halt operations in Rafah that risk destruction of civilian population

The International Court of Justice orders Israel to halt military operations in Rafah that would risk the destruction of the civilian population sheltering there.

Israel “must 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,” states the ruling, read out by the court’s president, Nawaf Salam.

While some are reading this as a blanket order to halt the offensive, the wording appears to include some conditionality that would allow Israel to continue operations in Rafah so long as it ensures that the conditions for Palestinians sheltering there do not deteriorate so as to risk their mass-destruction.

Judge Georg Nolte appears to adopt this understanding.

“The measure obliging Israel to halt the current military offensive in Rafah is conditioned by the need to prevent ‘conditions of life that could bring about [the] physical destruction in whole or in part’ of the Palestinian group in Gaza,” he writes in a declaration included in the full ruling.

Notably, nearly one million of the 1.4 million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah have already evacuated, amid IDF orders to do so.