ICJ orders Israel to guarantee ‘urgent humanitarian aid’ to Gaza

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel, this Thursday (28), to guarantee, without delay, the delivery of “urgent humanitarian aid” to Gaza, devastated after almost six months of war between Israel and Hamas.

The conflict, which began after the Islamist movement attacked Israel on October 7, has left the narrow territory in ruins and its 2.4 million inhabitants on the brink of famine, according to the UN.

Israel must take all necessary and effective measures to ensure, without delay, the unrestricted delivery of “basic services and urgent humanitarian aid” to the Gaza Strip, declared the ICJ, the UN’s main judicial body, based in The Hague, in the Netherlands.

Following a demand from South Africa, the ICJ ordered Israel in January to prevent any act of genocide in Palestinian territory and allow the entry of humanitarian aid. Israel called the accusations “scandalous”.

The Ministry of Health of the Strip, a territory governed by Hamas since 2007, reported this Thursday that at least 66 deaths were recorded in Gaza overnight, the majority in Israeli bombings.

The balance brings the number of deaths in Gaza due to the Israeli military offensive to 32,552, according to the ministry, which details that the majority of those killed are civilians.

Israel promised to “annihilate” the Islamist movement after the October 7 attack in the south of Israeli territory, which left at least 1,160 people dead, most of them civilians, according to an AFP report based on data released by Israeli authorities.

The Islamist fighters also captured some 250 people and 130 of them remain in Gaza, of whom 34 are said to have died, according to Israeli authorities.

– ‘Blindfolded’ –

Since then, the fighting has not stopped. The Israeli Army, which accuses Hamas fighters of using hospitals as hiding places, continues with the operation that began on March 18 in the Al Shifa hospital complex, in Gaza City, where it claims to have “eliminated almost 200 terrorists” in the area.

Israeli troops “transferred civilians, patients and medical staff to alternative medical facilities,” according to the military.

Karam Ayman Hathat, a 57-year-old Palestinian who lives in a building near the hospital, told AFP that “Israeli forces forced the men to strip down to their underwear.”

“I saw others blindfolded who had to follow a tank through explosions,” he added.

In Khan Yunis, in the south, soldiers carry out operations in areas close to the Nasser and Al Amal hospitals, located one kilometer away.

The Israeli Army indicated this Thursday that it had “eliminated dozens of terrorists in the Al Amal sector” and added that its troops “found explosive devices and mortar shells”.

Ghazi Agha, 60, was in a tent in the Nasser hospital complex when the army asked people there to leave the premises.

“They warned through the megaphone: ‘Leave or we will bomb the buildings’. I went out with a dozen people […] We heard explosions and gunshots all the time,” he said.

Israel is still planning a ground operation in Rafah, a town in southern Gaza that it considers Hamas’ last stronghold.

– Humanitarian situation –

Around 1.5 million Palestinians live confined in Khan Yunis, the vast majority displaced by violence elsewhere in the territory.

The United States, Israel’s main allies, fear the humanitarian cost of this operation.

The recent adoption of a UN resolution demanding an “immediate ceasefire”, which was made possible thanks to the abstention of the United States, has infuriated the Israeli government.

But on Wednesday, a senior US government official said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office is now willing to talk to Washington about the possible Rafah offensive.

For its part, Qatar, which acts as a mediator alongside Egypt and the United States, stated this week that indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas are continuing, with the aim of reaching a truce and an exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners.

The war has caused a humanitarian catastrophe in the small Palestinian territory and ground aid only comes in trickles.

At the same time, several countries are parachuting food, especially in the north of the Gaza Strip, where the situation is desperate.

“Food aid is often parachuted in when people are isolated […] Here, the help we need is just a few kilometers away: we have to use the roads,” said James Elder, spokesman for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), in Rafah.

A group of Palestinians lined up this Thursday on a street in that city to fill their gallons of drinking water.

“There is no water in the school” turned into a refuge, “so we came here”, explained Ali al Samuni, a displaced person aged approximately 50.

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