The ?UN’s international court of justice has ordered Israel to ensure its forces do not commit acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, in a historic decision. 

In an interim judgment delivered on Friday, the president of the court, Joan Donoghue, said Israel must “take all measures within its power” to prevent acts that fall within the scope of the genocide convention and must ensure “with immediate effect” that its forces do not commit any of the acts covered by the convention. 

The court stopped short of granting South Africa’s request to order an immediate ceasefire to the war, which has destroyed much of the Gaza Strip and killed more than 25,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities. 

The ruling is not the final word from the court on whether Israel’s actions amount to genocide, but it provides a strong indication that the judges believe there is a credible risk to Palestinians under the genocide convention. Granting South Africa’s application for special measures, the court did not have to find whether Israel had committed genocide, which will be determined at a later date, but only that its acts were capable of falling within the genocide convention and that urgent preventive action was necessary. 

Donoghue said Israel must “take all measures within its power to prevent” killing Palestinians, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction in whole or in part of the Palestinian group, and imposing measures intended to prevent births of Palestinians. 

“The court is also of the view that Israel must take measures within its power to prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide in relation to the members of the Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip,” the US judge said. “The court further considers that Israel must take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”

Donoghue said Israel must ensure the preservation of evidence of alleged genocide and must report to the court within a month. The six provisional measures were approved by a wide majority of the judges – two of them by 16 to one and four by 15 to two. 

A statement from the South African foreign ministry called it “a decisive victory for the international rule of law and a significant milestone in the search for justice for the Palestinian people” and expressed hope “that Israel will not act to frustrate the application of this order, as it has publicly threatened to do, but that it will instead act to comply with it fully, as it is bound to do”. 

The Palestinian foreign minister, Riyad al-Maliki, called it a decision “in favour of humanity and international law” and “a wake-up call for Israel and actors who enabled its entrenched impunity”. 

A senior Hamas official said Israel must be forced to implement the decision. The ICJ has no powers of enforcement and countries have ignored its orders in the past.

(Source: The Guardian)