{"id":52821,"date":"2024-05-17T12:29:08","date_gmt":"2024-05-17T12:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/17\/israel-defends-rafah-operation-as-limited-and-localized-at-u-n-court\/"},"modified":"2024-05-17T12:29:08","modified_gmt":"2024-05-17T12:29:08","slug":"israel-defends-rafah-operation-as-limited-and-localized-at-u-n-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/17\/israel-defends-rafah-operation-as-limited-and-localized-at-u-n-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel Defends Rafah Operation as \u2018Limited and Localized\u2019 at U.N. Court"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Israel<\/div>


\n<\/p>\n

\n

Israeli government lawyers on Friday defended the military operation in Rafah as \u201climited and localized,\u201d arguing at the United Nations\u2019 top court that the judges should not seek to restrict Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza.<\/p>\n

At a hearing at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Israel responded to a South African petition for the court to order an immediate halt to its ground assault in Rafah.<\/p>\n

Israeli forces have advanced into the outskirts of Rafah, Gaza\u2019s southernmost city, over the past week and a half, ordering mass evacuations and intensifying their bombardment ahead of a long-anticipated invasion of the city. More than 630,000 people have fled the area, many of them already displaced from elsewhere in Gaza, according to the United Nations.<\/p>\n

The hearings are part of South Africa\u2019s case accusing Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, which it filed in December<\/a>. In late January, the court ordered Israel to do more<\/a> to prevent acts of genocide, but is not expected to hear the main case over whether genocide is being committed until next year.<\/p>\n

Last week, South Africa asked the judges to issue an emergency order aiming to prevent wide-scale civilian harm in Rafah. Lawyers for South Africa argued at the court on Thursday<\/a> that Israel\u2019s Rafah operation was \u201cthe last step in the destruction of Gaza and its Palestinian people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The court has no means of enforcing its orders, but the South Africa case has contributed to the international pressure on Israel to rein in its campaign in Gaza. It was not clear when the court would issue a decision on South Africa\u2019s request for an emergency order.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Gilad Noam, the Israeli deputy attorney general for international law, repeated Israel\u2019s fierce rejection that it was committing genocide in Gaza. He said the Israeli authorities were working to facilitate the flow of humanitarian aid and to protect civilians amid fierce combat across the enclave, including in Rafah.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsrael is taking steps to try and contend with the massive complexity that such a situation presents,\u201d Mr. Noam told the judges. \u201cThat is why there has not been a large-scale assault on Rafah, but rather specific limited and localized operations prefaced with evacuation efforts and support for humanitarian activities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Israeli leaders have said that invading Rafah is necessary to topple Hamas\u2019s rule in Gaza. Four battalions of Hamas fighters are in the city, according to the Israeli military, as well as at least some of the over 130 living and dead hostages still held by Palestinian armed groups since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that set off the war in Gaza.<\/p>\n

But the prospect of a major ground invasion of Rafah amid hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians has provoked sharp criticism internationally, including from the Biden administration. After Israel began its advance into the area, President Biden said Washington would withhold some weapons<\/a> if Israel launched a full-fledged assault into densely populated areas.<\/p>\n

Mr. Noam argued that the court ran the risk of engaging in \u201cmicromanagement of operational aspects of an armed conflict.\u201d He said that demanding a cease-fire would only tie Israel\u2019s hands because Hamas \u2014 an armed group rather than a state \u2014 was not subject to the court\u2019s jurisdiction.<\/p>\n

South Africa on Thursday also asked the court to order Israel to ensure greater access for aid workers, investigators and journalists in Gaza. Mr. Noam said that Israel\u2019s justice system was working to crack down on alleged wartime misconduct, and that military prosecutors had opened 55 criminal investigations into possible violations by Israeli forces since the beginning of the war.<\/p>\n

Human rights groups argue the Israeli military cannot credibly investigate itself and that soldiers who kill Palestinians under contested circumstances rarely face substantial penalties. B\u2019Tselem, a leading Israeli human rights monitor, has dismissed<\/a> previous inquiries by the Israeli authorities into potential violations of the laws of war as a whitewash.<\/p>\n

Israeli officials have accused South Africa, by filing the case, of acting as a \u201clegal arm\u201d of Hamas, which led the deadly Oct. 7 attack. Last week, Hamas said that a delegation of its officials had attended a conference in Johannesburg. Hamas posted a photo of Basem Naim, a group spokesman, speaking with Naledi Pandor, South Africa\u2019s foreign minister, on social media.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Israeli government lawyers on Friday defended the military operation in Rafah as \u201climited and localized,\u201d arguing at the United Nations\u2019 top court that the judges should not seek to restrict Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza. At a hearing at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Israel responded to a South African petition for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52822,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/05\/17\/multimedia\/17mideast-crisis-icj-1-mpcq\/17mideast-crisis-icj-1-mpcq-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1625,2449,38,11665,52488,6463,4761,3449],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52821"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52821"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52823,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52821\/revisions\/52823"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}