‘Knowledge of the subject’ and ‘fairness,’ dear Professor!

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Hassan El-Nabih

I was fortunate to live for about six years in Britain, the USA, and Canada. My visits to these western countries were mainly for academic purposes, but I had excellent opportunities to communicate with westerners on a daily basis: in the university, at the market, on the bus, etc. I noticed that many westerners have distorted images and fabricated views of Palestinians, which can largely be attributed to the Israeli/Jewish propaganda machine. Nevertheless, I also noticed that the westerners in general are open-minded and willing to listen and get at the truth. In this regard, I would like to share a special experience I had with one of my American professors in 2009 while I was studying for my doctorate program in Boston.

Throughout the professor’s course, my classmates and I had to individually meet with her in her office in order to discuss the development of our course projects. On my first visit, I talked about my experience as a Palestinian teacher of English for more than twenty years in Gaza. The professor referred to her teaching philosophy posted on the back of her office door. It included nine characteristics: knowledge of the subject, course preparation and organization, clarity and understandability, enthusiasm for teaching, concern with students’ learning progress, availability and helpfulness, quality of examinations, impartiality in evaluating students, and overall fairness to students. I expressed my appreciation of these characteristics and highlighted the importance of having some fun in the classroom, as I believe in edutainment (blend of ‘education’ and ‘entertainment’). With a big smile lighting up her face, the professor got up immediately and wrote this characteristic at the top of the philosophy list with my name next to it — Fun! (Hassan).

A week later, when I arrived at the professor’s office for my second visit, I saw on the door a letter-size poster with the title “What if Hamas was in your neighborhood?” followed by two paragraphs referring to Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip which had ended a few weeks earlier (January 2009). Skimming the poster, I was shocked by the myths the poster included. I entered the office, and more shockingly, I saw a copy of the same poster on the wall. I greeted the professor and asked why she had the poster in and outside her office. She answered, “I’d like to balance out what I feel has been a one-sided presentation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” I turned my laptop on and showed her a two-minute clip entitled “Behind the Scenes–Closed Zone.” The animation was made by Gisha, an Israeli (not Palestinian) organization, depicting the relentless, inhumane siege on Gaza. I told the professor that I had a traumatic experience during this [2009] war on Gaza; I was away from my family in Gaza, and the horrible news about the casualties and destruction there haunted my nightmares. I also showed the professor a photo of my mother, who was just nine years old in 1948, when she and her family escaped with their lives to Gaza after Israeli troops brutally attacked their village.

United Nations premises and shelters, were severely attacked. The message of your poster is a call for more killing and more destruction. IS THIS FAIR?

As one of your students, I have been hurt very much by this poster. My children in Gaza will not be happy to know that one of my professors supports the war on Gaza. I don’t think that this fits into your good teaching philosophy characteristic “Fairness to Students.” The concept of ‘students’ here applies to your actual university students as well as to those who approach you as a great scholar who has enriched knowledge for years.

I do agree that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is very complicated; however, I still believe that there can be a solution if the international community makes reasonable efforts towards putting an end to the Palestinian suffering over the past seven decades. By doing so, there will be a lasting peace for all nations in the region.

Finally, I hope when I visit your office next time, I can see informative, interesting, and peaceful stuff posted on your office door.

I wish you peace, love, and happiness.

Sincerely,

Hassan El-Nabih

Interestingly, my message achieved the desired effect on the professor’s attitude. When I visited her the following week, she thoughtfully welcomed me, and I was really thrilled to see some beautiful flowers in place of the poster! Later, our communication developed into a strong friendship.

As highlighted above, my professor in Boston represents many westerners who do not have enough information about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Others, however, are unfortunately under the illusion that they know the truth. I would like to conclude my article with some important informative points:

  • The Palestinian-Israeli conflict didn’t arise with the establishment of Hamas in 1987 or the establishment of Fatah in 1965. In fact, the conflict arose in 1948, when the state of Israel was established on about 78% of historic Palestine, an event that entailed systematic and violent ethnic cleansing operations; two-thirds of the indigenous Palestinian people were forced to flee their homes, turning them into refugees in the remaining Palestinian territories (namely, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem) and in different places in the world. In 1967, Israel continued its colonial project by invading and occupying the remaining Palestinian territories.
  • There is a scandalous double standard view towards what has been happening in occupied Palestinian territories and in Ukraine.
  • Fifteen years have passed since I had this memorable experience with one of my American professors. In 2010, I finished my Ph.D. and returned to Gaza, where I work as a university instructor. Tragically, the situation has gotten decidedly worse; Israel launched four more aggressive wars on the Gaza Strip (in 2012, 2014, 2021, and 2023), resulting in much bigger numbers of casualties and greater hardships for innocent civilian Palestinians.

Israel has inflicted cruel collective punishment on the people in the Gaza Strip. I myself have never been affiliated with any militant or even political group; however, Israeli military aircrafts destroyed my own house twice, in the 2014 and 2023 wars! My story on Mondoweiss depicts how I miraculously survived in the 2014 war, when my house was brutally destroyed while I was inside. It took me five years and massive debts to reconstruct the house, but to my great shock, it was aggressively attacked and reduced to rubble in the 2023 war. Currently, I am living in untold misery with my family and thousands of other homeless Palestinians in a UNRWA school shelter.

As Israel’s 2023 war on Gaza has not ended yet, several Israeli officials have stirred up intense racial hatred against Palestinians. In sheer stupidity and callousness, one Israeli minister considered Gazans as “human animals,” and another Israeli minister suggested attacking the Gaza Strip (2.3 million people) with a nuclear bomb!

Palestinians shouldn’t be blamed for not being good victims. Israelis mistakenly think that what can’t be resolved by power can be resolved by more power. Israel’s military aircrafts, tanks, and warships can destroy Palestinians’ houses, but not their homes; their bodies, but not their spirits. Palestinians are human beings who don’t just resiliently love life; Palestinians, as Rafeef Ziadah’s poem goes, are people who teach life.

Israel must rectify its injustices against Palestinians, not with might, but for what is right. The Palestinian people are entitled to exercise their political, national, and civil rights like all other peoples in the world.

(Source: Mondoweiss)

Safe zones: Israel’s technologies of genocide

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Nicola Perugini

“This evacuation is for your own safety,” the Israeli military declared on October 13, when it ordered 1.1 million Palestinians in northern Gaza to leave their homes. Thousands heeded the warning and headed south, only to be bombed along the way and upon arrival.

The massive evacuation order was only the inauguration of an array of announcements and legal technologies developed by the Israeli military and its legal team in order to organise the violence against the Palestinian population and shroud it in an obfuscating narrative of international humanitarian law precautions.

Israel’s deadly ‘humanitarian efforts’


In November, shortly after the Israeli army launched its ground offensive, it designated Gaza’s main north-south route – Salah al-Din Street – as a “safe corridor”. A map with the evacuation passage was shared by the occupation forces, underscoring their “humanitarian effort” to protect civilians. But since then, Gaza’s main road artery has become a corridor of horror where Palestinians have been randomly bombed, executed, forcibly disappeared, tortured and humiliated.

Meanwhile, the Israeli army continued to bombard the territory south of Wadi Gaza which it had repeatedly declared a “safe area” where Palestinians from the north could seek safety.

When at the end of November, the death toll of the war reached 15,000 Palestinians, many of whom were civilians killed in the “safe zones”, the United States administration tried to conceal its support for Israel’s indiscriminate targeting of civilians with a cosmetic request to “expand” the so-called safe areas. So the Israeli army responded by introducing a new “humanitarian tool”: the evacuation grid system. It published on social media a grid map dividing the Gaza Strip into 600 blocks and indicating which areas were supposed to be “evacuated” and which were “safe”.

Instead of increasing the areas of safety for civilians, the system – deployed while Gaza was cut off from all forms of communication by the Israeli military – increased the level of chaos and death.

Areas previously designated as safe like Khan Younis and Rafah were transformed into urban battlegrounds. As a result, Israel ordered Palestinian civilians in these areas to leave again to new safe zones. But the areas where the evacuation grid system told the Palestinians to flee to were immediately targeted by the Israeli military.

In December, a New York Times investigation revealed that during the first month and a half of the war, Israel “routinely used one of its biggest and most destructive bombs in areas it designated safe for civilians”. The 2,000-pound United States-made bombs dropped in the safe zones posed “a pervasive threat to civilians seeking safety across south Gaza”.

Nevertheless, the Biden administration has repeatedly commended Israel for its “efforts” to protect civilians.

Organising genocidal violence


According to international law, both in the Geneva Conventions and in the Additional Protocols, safe zones must be recognised in an agreement between the fighting parties. However, in conflicts, this rarely happens and safe zones – and the legal technologies associated with them – can become tools for the organisation of violence.

The concentration of defenceless civilians in areas designated and delimited on a map as protected, can be used and exploited by the actors on the battlefield to manage and direct their use of lethal force.

This was the case in Bosnia, with the infamous Srebrenica “safe zone”. The area was instituted by the United Nations in 1993 in order to protect Bosnian Muslims under attack, but the disarmament of the safe zone transformed it into easy prey for Serb forces. They first obstructed the delivery of humanitarian aid to the area and then rounded up and massacred thousands of Muslim civilians.

Safe areas became lethal also in the case of Sri Lanka, where the government imposed the creation of Tamil safety zones in which it killed thousands of civilians, while blaming the Tamil Tigers for allegedly using the refugees concentrated in the safe zones as “human shields”.

Similarly, in Gaza, Israel is imposing unilaterally what and where is “safe” for Palestinian civilians. In doing so, it is deploying the discourse of safety and its associated legal technologies – warnings, safe zones, safe corridors, evacuation grids – as a lethal tool to implement the ethnic cleansing of different areas of the territory designated as safe/unsafe.

Areas or parts of the territories defined as safe serve to concentrate the displaced population and better manage the military operations and the killing of civilians. As one poignant Reuters headline put it: “Israel orders Gazans to flee, bombs where it sends them”.

In other words, by putting under evacuation order and depopulating vast swaths of Gaza’s territory, Israel has been concentrating the ethnically cleansed population into shrinking zones which it targets immediately after they are designated as “safe areas”. This shows a clear intent to liquidate Palestinian civilians after displacing them, and can become a tool for making extermination more efficient.

In overpopulated areas like Rafah with an extremely high population density due to the influx of displaced people from northern and central Gaza, one single attack can kill a large number of people at once.

Apart from serving a clear military purpose, this necropolitical appropriation of the humanitarian duty to warn and create safe spaces for civilians is also part of Israel’s legal strategy to defend itself from the accusation of having committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.

With the recent genocide application submitted by the Republic of South Africa to the International Court of Justice, which accuses Israel of acts “intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group”, there is heightened urgency for the Israeli government to try to present itself as abiding by international law.

Israel has always tried to provide its 75 years of ethnic cleansing and dispossession with a semblance of legality. But this time the genocidal force of annihilation it has unleashed has reached such an unprecedented scale – putting 2.3 million people at concrete risk of death – that its legal discourse of safety cannot camouflage its complete disregard for the civilian status of the population in Gaza.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

From a Palestinian in Gaza, thank you South Africa!

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Haidar Eid

South Africa has had enough of the world’s deafening silence on apartheid Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The unprecedented number of war crimes and crimes against humanity Israel committed in the besieged coastal enclave in the past three months with complete impunity has put the credibility of international law at stake and sprung South Africa into action. Its top legal minds compiled a 84-page document detailing evidence of these crimes and launched a landmark case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Israel of committing genocide in contravention of the 1948 Genocide Convention.

This is music to Palestinian ears. No other country, Arab or Muslim, has ever dared cross this “red line” before. After all, this is Israel, the colonial West’s spoiled baby – the one project it insisted on keeping alive after the end of the era of colonialism, camouflaging it with slogans of the Enlightenment and arming it with its best weapons. Every state on Earth is undoubtedly aware of Israel’s crimes, but none dares hold it to account in fear of what its colonial patrons may do in response.

Thankfully, post-apartheid South Africa eventually said “enough is enough” and took Israel to the top court of the United Nations. The nation that defeated a ruthless apartheid regime and built a multiracial, democratic state in its place recognised how the international community’s silence is paving the way for Israel’s deadly excesses, and it took an important step to put an end to it.

Indeed, charging Israel with the crime of genocide at the ICJ could bring an end to Israel’s impunity, create the conditions for a much needed military embargo and leave Israel isolated on the world stage. Even more importantly, South Africa’s case could lead to provisional measures that include an immediate ceasefire and the entry of sufficient humanitarian aid into Gaza. These measures are urgently needed because every day people are dying in their thousands in the strip. More than 23,000 people have already perished, and thousands more are missing under the rubble. About 70 percent of the victims of this horror have been women and children.

I happen to be both Palestinian and South African and a survivor of the Gaza genocide. I’ve lost many relatives, friends, colleagues, students and neighbours to Israel’s violence over the years.

In Gaza, I survived five attacks or, more accurately, massacres by apartheid Israel from 2008 to 2023. I’ve also experienced first hand the consequences of the deadly siege it has imposed on the strip since 2006. My entire neighbourhood was flattened by air strikes in the first week of the ongoing genocide. And I’ve been displaced four times since then.

Like every other inhabitant of this coastal enclave, I lived through the same dark scenario with every massacre: Israel decided to “mow the lawn”, the so-called international community conveniently looked the other way and, for many long days and nights, we faced the world’s most immoral army alone – an army that has hundreds of nuclear warheads and thousands of trigger-happy soldiers armed with Merkava tanks, F-16s, Apache helicopters, naval gunships and phosphorous bombs. Once the massacre was over, everything returned to “normal”, and Israel continued to kill us slowly with a suffocating siege that keeps our children malnourished, water contaminated and nights dark. And in the many iterations of this deadly cycle that we lived through, at no point did we receive a single word of sympathy or support from the Bidens, Sunaks, Macrons, and von der Leyens of this world.

All these massacres committed with impunity made it glaringly obvious that apartheid Israel has the unequivocal backing of the white, “liberal” West to do as it pleases with Gaza and its people. These massacres were the dress rehearsals for the genocide that is under way today. They showed Israel that it can commit war crimes and crimes against humanity without receiving any sanction or condemnation from the international community. After all, no one said anything in 2008, 2012, 2014 and 2021, so why should it be any different now? This is the logic that has allowed Israel’s leaders to be so open in the past few months about their intentions to “exterminate” Palestinians in Gaza.

Indeed, since the beginning of this latest massacre, this genocide, a wide range of Israeli officials from the president and the prime minister to prominent members of the government, media and civil society have clearly voiced their intent for genocide. Just last week, Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, who had previously said dropping a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip is “an option”, urged Israel to find ways that are “more painful than death” to force Palestinians to leave the strip.

Israel’s intent to commit genocide in Gaza may be more clear today than ever before, but it is in no way new. Back in 2004, Arnon Soffer, head of the National Defense College of the Israeli Offensive Forces and an adviser to then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, had already spelled out the desired results of Israel’s unilateral disengagement from Gaza in an interview with the Israeli newspaper Jerusalem Post: “When 1.5 million people live in a closed-off Gaza, it’s going to be a human catastrophe. Those people will become even bigger animals than they are today. … The pressure at the border will be awful. It’s going to be a terrible war. So if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day. … If we don’t kill, we will cease to exist. … Unilateral separation doesn’t guarantee “peace”. It guarantees a Zionist-Jewish state with an overwhelming majority of Jews.”

Now, 20 years after Soffer revealed Israel’s intention to “kill and kill and kill” in the strip, Gaza is truly dying. People are being killed, maimed, starved and displaced en masse before the eyes of the world’s nations, in what tragically has become the first globally watched genocide in history.

We, Palestinians, will not forget the sickening cowardice of the so-called international community, which has allowed and enabled this genocide. We will not forget how the nations of the world stood idly by as Israel’s racist leaders openly claimed that we, the Indigenous people of Palestine, are the “Amalek” – the foe that, according to the Torah, God ordered the ancient Israelites to commit genocide against – and embarked on a racist, inhuman quest to “annihilate” all of us.

But we will never forget what South Africa did for us either. We will not forget how it showed us unwavering support and bravely took a stand for us at the world court when even our own brothers have turned their backs on us in fear. We will always remember how it linked our struggle, our most basic human rights, to global justice and reminded the international community of our humanity.

Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, being committed out in the open and with impunity, has ushered in the end of the Western-led, rules-based international order. By bravely standing up for what is right and taking Israel to the ICJ, however, South Africa showed us that another world is possible: a world where no state is above the law, most heinous crimes like genocide and apartheid are never accepted and the peoples of the world stand together shoulder to shoulder against injustice.

Thank you, South Africa!

The opinions presented in this article are those of the author and may not necessarily align with the editorial stance of Quds News Network.

Gazans’ future depends on decision of International Court of Justice: South Africa

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South Africa, on Thursday, demanded the International Court of Justice (ICJ) impose provisional measures on Israel to halt its assault on Gaza, while asking Israel to take measures to “prevent genocide”, Anadolu Agency reports.

At a hearing of its genocide case against Israel in The Hague, the South African delegation said: “The future of the Palestinians who are still in Gaza depends on the decision this Court will make on this matter.”

The delegation underlined that the mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza formed a “calculated pattern of conduct by Israel indicating a genocidal intent.”

Adila Hassim, one of the delegation’s lawyers, underscored at the hearing that the genocide case “underscores the very essence of our shared humanity as expressed in the preamble to the Genocide Convention.”

Stressing that genocides are “never declared in advance”, Hassim said: “But this Court has the benefit of the past 13 weeks of evidence that shows incontrovertibly, a pattern of conduct and related intention that justifies a plausible claim of genocidal acts.”

The delegation also demanded the ICJ not hesitate to impose provisional measures, as it “did not hesitate” in the case of the genocide against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, asserting that the situation in Gaza also deserves court intervention.

“There is an urgent need for provisional measures to prevent imminent irreparable prejudice” in this case, South Africa said, underlining that “there could not be a clearer or more compelling case”.

 World ‘should be ashamed’

The delegation urged the ICJ that “there must be an end to the decimation of Gaza and its people”, as the international community “continues to fail” to take action.

“The international community continues to fail the Palestinian people, despite the overt, dehumanising genocidal rhetoric by Israeli government and military officials, matched by the Israeli army actions on the ground,” it said.

“Despite the horror of the genocide against the Palestinian people, being live streamed from Gaza to our mobile phones, computers and television screens, the first genocide in history where its victims are broadcasting their own destruction in real time in the desperate, so far vain, hope “that the world might do something,” the delegation further said.

South Africa seeks justice for Gaza - Cartoon [Sabaaneh/Middle East Monitor] 

South Africa seeks justice for Gaza – Cartoon [Sabaaneh/Middle East Monitor]

“The world should be absolutely horrified. The world should be absolutely outraged,” it said and added: “There is no safe space in Gaza and the world should be ashamed.”

South Africa also emphasised that the cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on 7 October “cannot justify Israel’s genocidal acts”.

“No matter what some individuals within the group of Palestinians in Gaza may have done, no matter how great the threat to Israeli citizens might be, genocidal attacks on the whole of Gaza population cannot be justified,” it told the ICJ.

It added: “No exception can be made in a provisional measures order to allow a State to engage in actions that are capable of violating its obligations under the Genocide Convention. It is unthinkable that the Court would ever do such a thing. That is the simple point in this case.”

“Genocide can never be justified in any circumstances,” it stressed, noting that South Africa already condemned the 7 October attacks.

Israel’s military operations ‘should be suspended immediately’

The South African delegation called on Israel to “immediately suspend” its military operations in and against Gaza.

The delegation stressed the immediate suspension of Israel’s operations is “the only way to secure humanitarian response and avoid getting more unnecessary death and destruction.”

It also urged the Israeli government to take “all reasonable measures within their power to prevent genocide”, while ensuring no “furtherance of military operations” by the forces under its control or influence.

Israel should take measures, including rescinding of relevant orders of restrictions, forced prohibitions to prevent expulsion, displacement of Gazans, it requested.

The delegation also demanded from Israel to allow access to humanitarian assistance in Gaza, including adequate shelter, clothes, hygiene, sanitation and medical supplies.

Furthermore, South Africa asked Israel to take “effective measures” to ensure preservation of evidence related to allegations of genocidal acts.

Public hearings commence

Public hearings in the genocide case against Israel began on Thursday at ICJ in The Hague.

On the first day of the trial, South Africa presented hard evidence in the case it filed on 29 December, accusing Israel of genocide and violation of the UN Genocide Convention with its actions in the Gaza Strip since 7 October.

The South African side is requesting an injunction by the top UN Court to halt Israel’s military assault on Gaza, which has dragged on for more than three months, with the death toll rising to over 23,300.

The 84-page filing by South Africa accuses Israel of acts and omissions “genocidal in character, as they are committed with the requisite specific intent … to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as a part of the broader Palestinian national, racial and ethnic group.”

It said Israel’s genocidal acts include the killing of Palestinians, causing them serious bodily and mental harm, mass expulsion from homes and displacement, imposing measures intended to prevent Palestinian births, and deprivation of access to adequate food, water, shelter, sanitation and medical assistance.

The South African delegation is being led by Justice Minister, Ronald Lamola, and will be joined by senior political figures from progressive political parties and movements across the globe.

Thursday’s hearing will be followed by Israel’s arguments in its defence the next day.

(Source: MEMO)

South Africa asks ICJ to stop Israel’s brutal genocide in Gaza

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South Africa has asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to order the occupying state of Israel to immediately suspend its deadly genocide campaign in Gaza, where over 23,500 Palestinian civilians have been killed in more than three months of Israeli aggression.

The demand came at the closing of the first day of hearings of a case brought by South Africa against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

South Africa presented a meticulously compiled 84-page case to the court, gathering evidence of Israel’s killing of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza and creating conditions “conducive to their physical destruction,” constituting a crime of “genocide” against them.

Lamola: Israel has crossed all boundaries  

South Africa’s Minister of Justice, Ronald Lamola, emphasized that no armed attack on a state’s territory, regardless of its severity, can justify violations of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Lamola pointed out that South Africa filed this claim on behalf of the State of Palestine, believing in preventing genocide, emphasizing that what is happening in Gaza contradicts international agreements on the prevention of genocide. He called for an end to the destruction facing Palestine.

Lamola said while delivering his opening statement in the case, “In extending our hands to the people of Palestine, we do so in full knowledge that we are part of a humanity.”

“These were the words of our founding president, Nelson Mandela; this is the spirit in which South Africa acceded to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in 1998.”

Attorney Adila Hassim: Israeli military offensive pushed Gaza residents to the edge of famine

Adila Hassim, a lawyer from the South African delegation, explained that Israeli military attack in Gaza has pushed residents “to the edge of famine.” She highlighted that the situation has reached a point where experts expect a higher death toll due to hunger and disease.

Hassim stressed the necessity of preventing Israel from continuing genocide and urged the court to study Israel’s crimes and issue a decision to halt genocide against Palestinian citizens.

She presented audible and visual evidence to clarify how Israel violates the Genocide Convention, using unprecedented levels of killing. Hashem emphasized the lack of safe places in Gaza, where tens of thousands have been killed or injured in the past three months, with 70% being women and children.

The lawyer further detailed Israel’s deliberate destruction of homes, infrastructure, and restrictions on aid entry, resulting in a genuine famine on the brink. She showcased videos depicting the desperation of Gaza residents, lacking clothing, shelter, and clean water, facing widespread diseases.

Hassim concluded by stating that Israel’s measures prevent women from giving birth humanely, with 15% facing pregnancy-related issues. Israel also targets humanitarian aid workers, making it challenging to provide assistance to those in need.

Attorney Tembeka Ngcukaitobi: Israeli army actions reflect officials’ instructions

Prominent lawyer Tembeka Ngcukaitobi of the South African delegation shed light on Israeli statements exposing their intent for genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Ngcukaitobi explained that Israeli occupation leaders justify the destruction of Palestinian lives using racist and extremist phrases, such as describing the bombing of an educational facility in Gaza as “a shelter for human animals.”

He continued, stating that some Israeli military leaders express their desire to enter Gaza and destroy everything, targeting homes, using bombs and explosives to destroy entire neighborhoods.

He emphasized that the Israeli army’s actions are based on the instructions of Israeli officials to target families, civilians, and children, providing sufficient evidence to assert that massacres are committed against civilians.

Repeatedly, Ngcukaitobi pointed out that Israeli officials claim there are no innocents in Gaza, and destruction is what they will face.

He affirmed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s intent for genocide was clear through incitement to bomb vital facilities and statements calling for the elimination of Gaza. Israeli forces targeted Palestinian journalists, considering women, children, and pregnant women as enemies, turning Gaza into slaughterhouses.

He quotes one Israeli minister calling for the “denial of water and fuel, as this is what will happen to a people of children killers”, and another saying “Israel must find ways for Gazans that are more painful than death”.

Ngcukaitobi highlighted members of the Israeli Likud party considering it normal to discuss views on Gaza’s non-existence, claiming it is the duty of Israeli kibbutz residents to destroy Gaza.

He pointed out that Israel obstructed humanitarian aid, closed all crossings leading to Gaza, and unprecedentedly destroyed the health sector.

International backing for South Africa’s move

Representatives from Jordan, Turkey, Libya, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Maldives, Venezuela, Namibia, Nicaragua, Malaysia, Indonesia, Bolivia, Colombia, Brazil, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation with 57 member states, and the Arab League, in addition to 200 professors and experts in international law, have expressed their support for South Africa’s lawsuit at the International Court.

Over two days, the court will hear South Africa’s justifications for filing the case and Israel’s response. A judgment on urgent measures, expected to include immediate orders for Israel to halt its military operations in Gaza, is anticipated later this month. However, the court will not issue a ruling on genocide charges simultaneously.

South Africa filed the lawsuit against Israel on December 29, accusing it of committing “acts of genocide” against the people of Gaza. The lawsuit revolves around Israel’s obligations under the Genocide Convention, seeking urgent measures to protect Palestinians in Gaza from further harm and ensuring Israel complies with the convention, stopping its military operations immediately.

(Source: WAFA News Network)

Gaza Session at ICJ today.. Judges in South Africa’s Case

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While the International Court of Justice considers the case of condemning Israel for genocide in Gaza, here are the judges of the court.

International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague will hold today the first public hearing of the lawsuit filed by the State of South Africa against Israel, after it accused of committing genocide against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.

On December 29th, South Africa filed a lawsuit against Israel, the occupying power, against the backdrop of its involvement in “acts of genocide” against Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.

In the application submitted to the International Court of Justice, South Africa requested “indication of interim measures in order to protect against further serious and irreparable harm to the rights of the Palestinian people under the Genocide Convention, and to ensure Israel’s compliance with its obligations under the Convention not to engage in, prevent and punish genocide.”

South Africa’s move comes in the wake of the martyrdom of more than 22,000 citizens, most of them women and children, in the ongoing Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip since last October 7.

*How do the courts function?

The ICJ is composed of 15 judges, including a president and a vice president, elected by the UN’s General Assembly and Security Council.

Elected for a 9-year term, these judges are eligible for reelection.

The ICC, on the other hand, has 18 judges, who are elected by the member states.

The court carries its investigation in cases through the office of the prosecutor, which is currently being headed by lawyer Karim Khan.

*Who are members of the ICJ?

For the ICJ, only member states of the UN are eligible to appear before the court.

Currently, around 193 states are members of the UN, as article 93, paragraph 1, of the Charter of the United Nations provides that all “members of the United Nations are ipso facto parties to the Statute.”

The ICJ seeks to settle disputes between countries, if they voluntarily participate in the proceeding, and then are bound to follow with the decision of the court.

The ICJ says that it has no jurisdiction to entertain requests from individuals, NGOs, corporations, or private entities.

*Who are members of the ICC?

The ICC has 123 members, which are state parties to its Rome Statute. Out of them, 33 are African countries, 19 are Asia-Pacific nations, 18 are from Eastern Europe, 28 are from Latin American and Caribbean states, and 25 are from Western European and other states.

Countries such as the US, Israel, and Russia are not members of the ICC.

The ICC looks into the crimes that were committed on or after July 1, 2002, the day when it was established.

The member countries can refer cases within their own jurisdiction to the court, or the UN Security Council can refer or the prosecutor can launch an “on one’s own initiative.”

The ICC has the jurisdiction to investigate non-member states if the offensives took place on the state parties’ territories.

*What cases has the ICJ handled?

The ICJ has looked into over 190 cases, according to its official website.

Some significant cases include Nicaragua v. United States of America, when in 1986, the ICJ ruled that the US had violated international law and supported rebel groups against the Nicaraguan government. The US refused the court’s ruling, and vetoed “enforcement action” when the decision was sent to the Security Council.

Another prominent case was when in 1993, the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina instituted proceedings against Yugoslavia for crimes of genocide.

Neighboring countries have also gone to the ICJ regarding their border disputes. In 2021, the ICJ determined the maritime boundary between Somalia and Kenya.

*What cases has the ICC handled?

According to the ICC website, there have so far “been 31 cases before the Court, with some cases having more than one suspect.”

ICC judges have issued 40 arrest warrants, the website says. Most of those indicted have been from African countries.

Around 21 people have been detained in the ICC detention center and have appeared before the court, including Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia.

Another 15 people remain at large. Charges have been dropped against seven people due to their deaths.

In 2023, the ICC issued an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin, declaring that he is responsible for the war crime of forcibly deporting and transferring children from occupied Ukrainian territory to Russia.

The Russian government refused to accept the decision, saying that it does not recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction.

A prominent case referred to the ICC by the UN Security Council was of Muammar al-Gaddafi, who was accused of killing civilians during the Arab Spring protests.

An arrest warrant was issued but was withdrawn after the former Libyan strongman was killed in 2011.

The ICC has also issued arrest warrants for former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on charges of “genocide and war crimes.”

Another former president, Ivory Coast’s Laurent Gbagbo, was arrested on ICC warrants in 2011 on charges of murder, rape and other crimes, but was acquitted by the court in 2019.

*As of 19 August 2023, the composition of the court is as follows:

President Joan Donoghue (United States), Peter Tomka (Slovakia), Ronnie Abraham (France), Mohamed Bennouna (Morocco), Abdelqawi Ahmed Yusuf (Somalia), Xue Hanqin (China), Julia Sebutinde (Uganda), Dalveer Bhandari (India) ), Patrick Lipton Robinson (Jamaica), Nawaf Salam (Lebanon), Yuji Iwasawa (Japan), George Nolte (Germany), Hilary Charlesworth (Australia).

*Most prominent judges:

  • Joan E. Donoghue (United States): Donoghue is the current president of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). She was first elected to the court in 2010, re-elected in 2014, and elected by the ICJ judges to be president of the ICJ in 2021.
  • Hilary Christiane Mary Charlesworth (born 28 February 1955) is an Australian international lawyer. She has been a Judge of the International Court of Justice since 5 November 2021, and is Harrison Moore Professor of Law and Melbourne Laureate Professor at the University of Melbourne, and Distinguished Professor at the Australian National University.
  • Ronny Abraham (born 6 September 1951) is a French academic and practitioner in the field of public international law who was elected to the International Court of Justice, to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of judge and former President Gilbert Guillaume. He served the remainder of Guillaume’s which ended on 5 February 2009, and was reelected for a term extending to 2018.
  • Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf: He is a Somali lawyer and judge serving on the International Court of Justice since 2009. He served as the court’s president from 2018 to 2021.
  • Mohamed Bennouna (born 29 April 1943) is a Moroccan diplomat and jurist. He worked as a Judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Since 2006, he is a judge of the International Court of Justice.
  • Nawaf Salam (born 15 December 1953) is a Lebanese diplomat, jurist, and academic. He was elected on 9 November 2017 as judge on the International Court of Justice for the 2018–2027 term, having received a concurrent majority of votes in the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council. He served as Lebanon’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York from 2007 to 2017, during which period he held the positions of President of the Security Council and Vice President of the General Assembly.

جلسة غزة في محكمة العدل الدولية اليوم.. هؤلاء يحكمون في دعوى جنوب أفريقيا

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هايدي صبري:


بينما تنظر محكمة العدل الدولية في قضية إدانة إسرائيل بالإبادة الجماعية في غزة.. تعرف على قضاة المحكمة؟

كانت جنوب أفريقيا قد طلبت من المحكمة، قبل أسبوع، إصدار أمر عاجل يعلن أن إسرائيل تنتهك التزاماتها بموجب اتفاقية منع جريمة الإبادة الجماعية لعام 1948، في حملتها على حركة حماس.

محكمة العدل الدولية قد أعلنت في 29 ديسمبر الماضي، أنها تلقت طلبا من جنوب إفريقيا، لمقاضاة إسرائيل بتهمة ارتكاب جرائم إبادة جماعية في قطاع غزة.

وطلبت جنوب إفريقيا من المحكمة الإشارة إلى تدابير مؤقتة من أجل حماية الفلسطينيين في غزة “من أي ضرر جسيم إضافي وغير قابل للإصلاح” بموجب الاتفاقية، ولضمان “امتثال إسرائيل لالتزاماتها بموجب اتفاقية الإبادة الجماعية بعدم المشاركة في الإبادة الجماعية، ومنعها والمعاقبة عليها”.

ويأتي تحرك جنوب إفريقيا في أعقاب استشهاد أكثر من 22 ألف مواطن معظمهم من النساء والأطفال، في العدوان الإسرائيلي المتواصل على قطاع غزة منذ 7 أكتوبر الماضي.

  • من هم الدول الأعضاء في المحكمة؟

ومن الأعضاء، 33 دولة أعضاء في مجموعة الدول الأفريقية، و19 دولة من آسيا والمحيط الهادئ، و18 دولة من أوروبا الشرقية، و28 دولة من أمريكا اللاتينية ومنطقة البحر الكاريبي، و25 دولة أعضاء في مجموعة أوروبا الغربية ودول أخرى.

*نشأة المحكمة

تأسست محكمة العدل الدولية بموجب ميثاق الأمم المتحدة لتكون الجهاز القضائي الرئيسي للأمم المتحدة وتعمل وفقاً لأحكام هذا النظام الأساسي، عام 1945، ومقرها (لاهاي في هولندا)، والمعروفة بشكل غير رسمي باسم “محكمة العالم” – وتقوم بحل النزاعات القانونية بين الدول، إذ تمنح رأي استشاري في القضايا التي تحيلها أجهزة الأمم المتحدة الأخرى المعتمدة، بحسب موقع محكمة العدل الدولية في نسخته الفرنسية.

وتم انتخاب أول أعضاء “محكمة العالم” في 6 فبراير 1946، خلال الدورة الأولى للجمعية العامة للأمم المتحدة ومجلس الأمن.

  • أبرز القرارات

ومن أبرز قرارات المحكمة التي أصدرتها، وتابعتها وسائل الإعلام الدولية على نطاق واسع، القرار الذي أصدرته محكمة العدل الدولية ضد ميانمار، في يناير 2020. ثم أمرت المحكمة هذا البلد بحماية سكان أقلية الروهينجا والتوقف عن تدمير الأدلة المرتبطة بمزاعم الإبادة الجماعية ضد هذه الأقلية.

وفي مارس 2022، أمرت محكمة العدل الدولية، روسيا، بوقف عملياتها العسكرية التي بدأتها في أوكرانيا في 24 من فبراير 2022. وقالت جوان دونوهيو رئيسة المحكمة “على روسيا فوراً تعليق العمليات العسكرية التي بدأتها في 24 فبراير في أراضي أوكرانيا”.

تنظيم المحكمة

تتكون المحكمة من هيئة من القضاة المستقلين، يتم انتخابهم بغض النظر عن جنسيتهم من بين الأشخاص ذوي الأخلاق الرفيعة، والذين يمتلكون المؤهلات المطلوبة في بلدانهم للتعيين في أعلى المناصب القضائية، أو فقهاء معترف بهم في مجال القانون الدولي.

وتتألف المحكمة من خمسة عشر عضوا، (قاضيا) منتخبين لمدة تسع سنوات من قبل الجمعية العامة للأمم المتحدة ومجلس الأمن. ويصوت هذان الجهازان في آن واحد ولكن بصفة مستقلة أحدهما عن الآخر.

ولا يجوز أكثر من قاض واحد من الجنسية نفسها. والشخص الذي يمكن اعتباره، لأغراض العضوية في المحكمة، مواطنًا لأكثر من دولة واحدة، يعتبر مواطنًا للدولة التي يمارس فيها عادة الحقوق المدنية والسياسية.

وتجري الانتخابات كل ثلاث سنوات لثلث المقاعد، ويجوز إعادة انتخاب الأعضاء المنتهية مدتهم. ولا يمثل أعضاء المحكمة حكوماتهم وهم قضاة مستقلون.

  • آلية الانتخاب

أعضاء المحكمة ينتخبون من قبل الجمعية العامة ومجلس الأمن من قائمة الأشخاص الذين رشحتهم المجموعات الوطنية في محكمة التحكيم الدائمة، وفقا للأحكام التالية.

وفي حالة أعضاء الأمم المتحدة غير الممثلين في محكمة التحكيم الدائمة، يتم ترشيح المرشحين من قبل المجموعات الوطنية المعينة لهذا الغرض من قبل حكوماتهم وفق نفس الشروط المنصوص عليها لأعضاء محكمة التحكيم الدائمة بموجب المادة 44. اتفاقية لاهاي لعام 1907 بشأن التسوية السلمية للمنازعات الدولية.

  • آخر عملية تصويت لاختيار قضاة

وفي تصويت مواز ومستقل، في نوفمبر الماضي، أجري بالاقتراع السري، أعادت الجمعية والمجلس انتخاب القاضية العاملة حاليا، الأسترالية هيلاري تشارلزوورث.

وخلال 5 جولات من التصويت في مجلس الأمن الدولي وجولة تصويت في الجمعية العامة، أعلن رئيسا الجهازين انتخاب: وجدان-لوسيان أوريسكو (رومانيا)؛ هيلاري تشارلزوورث (أستراليا)؛ سارة هال كليفلاند (الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية)؛ خوان مانويل جوميز روبليدو فيردوزكو (المكسيك)؛ ديري تلادي (جنوب أفريقيا)

وكانت قائمة المرشحين تضم 9 أشخاص من بينهم أحمد أمين فتح الله (مصر)؛ وكيريل جيفورجيان (الاتحاد الروسي) الذي كان يسعى للحصول على فترة ثانية في المحكمة، لكنه في فشل في تأمين فترة ولاية أخرى.

قضاة المحكمة الحاليون هم:

الرئيسة جوان دونوهيو (الولايات المتحدة)، وبيتر تومكا (سلوفاكيا)، روني أبراهام (فرنسا)، محمد بنونة (المغرب)، عبد القوى أحمد يوسف (الصومال)، شيويه هانكين (الصين)، جوليا سيبوتيندا (أوغندا)، دلفير بهانداري (الهند)، باتريك ليبتون روبنسون (جامايكا)، نواف سلام (لبنان)، أواساو يوجي (اليابان)، جورج نولتئ (ألمانيا)، هيلاري تشارلزوورث(أستراليا).

  • أبرز القضاة:

جوان إي دونوهيو (الولايات المتحدة)

جوان إي دونوهيو، مواليد عام 1948، قاضية أمريكية، تخرجت من جامعة كاليفورنيا، وتشغل منصب رئيس محكمة العدل الدولية.

هيلاري تشارلزوورث (أستراليا)

هيلاري تشارلزوورث، من مواليد عام 1955، من أصل بلجيكي، ودرست في جامعة ميلبورن، بكلية الحقوق، وهي قاضية في محكمة العدل الدولية وقانونية رائدة، مشهورة بعملها الأكاديمي في القانون الدولي. منذ انضمامها إلى محكمة العدل الدولية في عام 2021، تصرفت تشارلزوورث وفقًا لأعلى معايير الاستقلال والحياد والنزاهة، بحسب الموقع الرسمي لوزارة الخارجية الأسترالية في نسخته الفرنسية.

روني أبراهام (فرنسي من أصل مصري)

روني أبراهام، من مواليد 5 سبتمبر 1951 بمدينة الإسكندرية المصرية، هو حقوقي فرنسي، رئيس محكمة العدل الدولية من فبراير 2015 إلى فبراير 2018.

عبد القوي يوسف (الصومال)

عبد القوي يوسف، مواليد عام 1948، هو قاضي، ودبلوماسي، ومحامي، من الصومال، وهو عضو في معهد القانون الدولي، كما تولى منصب رئيس محكمة العدل الدولية (من 2018 حتى 2023)، وتعلم في الجامعة الوطنية الصومالية، وجامعة فلورنسا.

محمد بنونة (المغرب)

محمد بنونة، مواليد عام 1943 في مراكش، المغرب، دبلوماسي ومحامي مغربي، وعمل أستاذاً في جامعة محمد الخامس، وممثلاً دائماً للمغرب في الأمم المتحدة في الفترة (1998 إلى 2001، ثم قاضياً في المحكمة الجنائية الدولية ليوغوسلافيا السابقة. ومنذ عام 2006، أصبح قاضياً في محكمة العدل الدولية.

نواف سلام (لبنان)

نواف سلام، مواليد 1953، لبناني، أستاذ جامعي ورجل قانون ودبلوماسي، يشغل منصب قاضي في محكمة العدل الدولية في لاهاي بعد أن شغل منصب سفير ومندوب لبنان الدائم في الأمم المتحدة في نيويورك بين (2007 إلى 2017).

(المصدر: الشروق)

Egypt, Jordan, & Palestine Hold Summit on Gaza Today in Jordan

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Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas hold a summit on Gaza in Jordan’s Aqaba today, January 10th, as announced by the Royal Hashemite Court of Jordan.

The summit’s agenda focuses on the current developments in Gaza and the West Bank. Earlier this week, President El-Sisi and President Abbas met in Cairo, focusing on strategies to halt the ongoing Israeli aggression in Gaza.

The leaders reiterated their unequivocal and absolute rejection of any attempts to sideline the Palestinian issue or forcibly displace the Palestinians.

El-Sisi had previously held discussions on the humanitarian situation in the besieged strip with King Abdullah II in Cairo. This summit coincides with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s Middle East tour, aiming to engage regional leaders in ‘post-war Gaza’ efforts. Blinken is expected to meet officials in Ramallah on Wednesday and conclude his tour in Cairo on Thursday.

بعد قمة العقبة… رفض مصري اردني فلسطيني لجهود أو مقترحات تهدف الى “تصفية القضية الفلسطينية”

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أكدت الرئاسة المصرية أن الرئيس المصري والملك الأردني والرئيس الفلسطيني يرفضون بعد قمة العقبة أي جهود أو مقترحات تهدف إلى “تصفية القضية الفلسطينية” وفصل المسارات بين غزة والضفة الغربية.

استضافت مدينة العقبة الأردنية قمة ثلاثية، جمعت الرئيس عبد الفتاح السيسي، والعاهل الأردني عبد الله الثاني، والرئيس الفلسطيني محمود عباس، وتعد هذه القمة الثالثة التي تجمع قادة الدول الثلاث خلال عام واحد، حيث عقدت القمة الأولى في يناير 2023 والثانية في أغسطس 2023 قبل اندلاع الحرب الأخيرة بحوالي شهر، وتركزت القمتين السابقتين على التنسيق والتشاور المشترك لتوحيد الرؤى لمواجهة التحديات التي تواجهها القضية الفلسطينية.

القادة الثلاثة يسعون من خلال هذه القمة التنسيق والتشاور في تداعيات استمرار العدوان الإسرائيلي الغاشم على قطاع غزة، ومخاطره على الأمن والسلم الإقليمي بما يهدد مصالح كل الأطراف، فلا سلام في الشرق الأوسط دون حل عادل وشامل للقضية الفلسطينية وفقا للمقررات الدولية. تحظى هذه القمة باهتمام مصري وأردني كبير، وتدعم القاهرة وعمان السلطة الوطنية الفلسطينية برئاسة الرئيس أبو مازن، ومنظمة التحرير كممثل شرعي ووحيد للشعب الفلسطيني، وسط الضغوط الإسرائيلية المتزايدة على رام الله.

أكد الرئيس السيسي والملك عبد الله الثاني على موقف مصر والأردن من أي حديث عن مستقبل قطاع غزة بأنه شأن فلسطيني يقرره الفلسطينيون وحدهم، وأن البلدين يدعمان كل خيارات الشعب الفلسطيني، وأن الدولتين ترفضان أي حلول مقترحة لغزة ما بعد انتهاء الحرب لا تراعي حقوق الشعب الفلسطيني وتضحياته ولا تضع في الحسبان حجم الفاتورة التي دفعها ولا يزال الفلسطينيون في سبيل تحقيق حلمهم في دولتهم المستقلة.

ودعا الزعماء الثلاثة لوقف فوري لإطلاق النار، وضرورة العودة للمسار السياسي لإيجاد حل عادل وشامل للقضية الفلسطينية على أساس حل الدولتين وفقا للمقررات الدولية ذات الصلة، وتنسيق مواقفهم حيال التطورات الأخيرة في قطاع غزة، والتأكيد على الموقف القائم حالياً برفض أية محاولات لتهجير سكان قطاع غزة والضفة والوقوف ضد تصفية القضية الفلسطينية.

وركزت قمة العقبة على حجم المعاناة الإنسانية التي تعيشها غزة الآن، وحجم الضحايا من الشهداء والمصابين، وعملية النزوح الداخلي التي تخطت 90 % من سكان القطاع، واستمرار إسرائيل في تعطيل إدخال ونفاذ المساعدات الإنسانية والإغاثية بشكل كامل لكل مناطق القطاع، وأنها لا تزال تتعمد الاستمرار في سياسة التجويع والعقاب الجماعي، وهو ما يخالف قرار مجلس الأمن الأخير رقم 2720 بشأن زيادة نفاذ المساعدات الإنسانية إلى القطاع، وإنشاء آلية أممية لمراقبة ومتابعة دخول المساعدات الإنسانية إلى القطاع.

Blinken: Israel Agrees on UN Mission to Evaluate North Gaza Situation

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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on his latest mission to contain the Gaza war, said displaced Palestinians must be able to return home as soon as conditions allow, and Israel has agreed to allow a United Nations mission to evaluate the situation in war-ravaged northern Gaza.

“As Israel’s campaign moves to a lower intensity phase in northern Gaza and as the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] scales down its forces there, we agreed today on a plan for the U.N. to carry out an assessment mission,” Blinken told reporters during a Tuesday news conference in Tel Aviv. “It will determine what needs to be done to allow displaced Palestinians to return safely to homes in the north.

The top diplomat also urged Israeli leaders to prevent further harm to Palestinian civilians.

“The daily toll on civilians in Gaza, particularly on children, is far too high,” he said.

International Court of Justice hearings

Later this week, the International Court of Justice will conduct hearings on a case filed by South Africa accusing Israel of genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and seeking an emergency suspension of its military campaign.

The United States believes the case is meritless and that it distracts from Israel’s efforts to fight threats from Hamas militants and other Iran proxies, including Hezbollah and the Houthis, according to Blinken.

“We want this war to end as soon as possible,” he said. “But it’s vital that Israel achieves its very legitimate objectives of ensuring that October 7 can never happened again.”

Israeli President Isaac Herzog has rejected the genocide charge filed at the International Court of Justice, calling the accusation “atrocious and preposterous.”

Gaza’s future

On Tuesday, Blinken held talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Herzog, Foreign Minister Israel Katz, and other senior officials from Israel’s war Cabinet in Tel Aviv.

“The Secretary and Prime Minister discussed ongoing efforts to secure the release of all remaining hostages and the importance of increasing the level of humanitarian assistance reaching civilians in Gaza,” according to a statement from the State Department.

“In this regard, the Secretary welcomed the appointment of Sigrid Kaag as the UN’s Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza, pledging close cooperation with her in this new capacity,” the statement added.

Blinken has stressed the potential for Israel to win acceptance from Arab neighbors by seeking a path toward establishing a Palestinian state as a means to resolve the longstanding conflict.

Netanyahu has firmly rejected the two-state solution.

The West Bank and Gaza should be united under a Palestinian-led governance that Hamas militants play no role in, according to the postwar roadmap envisioned by Washington.

But some analysts are skeptical and play down the prospect.

“I don’t see how the Palestinian Authority will go back into Gaza and assume any kind of meaningful control over what is left of Gaza. They’re having a very hard time maintaining control, even in the West Bank,” Khaled Elgindy, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, told VOA on Tuesday.

Blinken also met on Tuesday with the families of some of the hostages held by Hamas militants in Gaza. And he relayed to Israeli leaders some of what he heard from other leaders in the region during stops in Turkey, Greece, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Gaza health officials say more than 23,000 Palestinians, a large percentage of them women and children, have been killed in Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

In a statement following talks with Blinken on Monday, Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman underscored the importance of halting military operations in the Gaza Strip and the need to create conditions for restoring peace and stability.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at al-Ula in northwestern Saudi Arabia on Jan. 8, 2024.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at al-Ula in northwestern Saudi Arabia on Jan. 8, 2024.

When asked about U.S.-led talks to normalize the relationship between Saudi Arabia and Israel, Blinken said there is “a clear interest” in Saudi Arabia, as well as in the region, in pursuing that goal but that “it will require that the conflict end in Gaza, and it will also clearly require that there be a practical pathway to a Palestinian state.”

Saudi Arabia has paused the diplomatic talks to normalize ties with Israel amid the military conflict between Hamas militants and Israeli forces.

Escalation in no one’s interest

After an Israeli airstrike killed a key Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon on Monday — the latest sign of a possibly widening conflict in the Middle East — Blinken told reporters it is clearly not in the interest of Israel, Lebanon or Hezbollah to see an escalation outside Gaza.

A minibus passes the attacked car that was used by the senior Hezbollah commander Wissam Tawil, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike the previous day, in Kherbet Selem village, south Lebanon, Jan. 9, 2024.

A minibus passes the attacked car that was used by the senior Hezbollah commander Wissam Tawil, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike the previous day, in Kherbet Selem village, south Lebanon, Jan. 9, 2024.

Hezbollah has identified the commander as Wissam al-Tawil. Last week, senior Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri was killed in a drone strike in Beirut. Hamas and Hezbollah are both U.S. designated terrorist organizations, and both are backed by Iran, whose militant allies in Syria, Iraq and Yemen have been carrying out longer-range attacks against Israel.

The United States has urged Israel to shift to smaller-scale military operations in Gaza but has continued to support Israel in refusing Arab demands for a cease-fire in the three-month war. Israel has vowed to continue the war until it believes the threat of Hamas attacks has been eradicated and the militant group no longer controls Gaza, a narrow strip of territory along the Mediterranean Sea.

Israel began its military campaign to wipe out Hamas after Hamas fighters crossed into southern Israel on October 7. Israel said about 1,200 people were killed and about 240 captives taken in the terror attack.

Cindy Saine contributed to this report. Some material for this report came from Reuters and The Associated Press.

بلينكن: إسرائيل وافقت على إرسال بعثة أممية لتقييم الوضع بشمال غزة

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أكد وزير الخارجية الأميركي، أنتوني بلينكن، اليوم الثلاثاء، أن عملية عودة سكان غزة إلى بيوتهم في شمال القطاع بحاجة لوقت وتنسيق أمني، مبيناً أن تل أبيب وافقت على مبدأ إرسال بعثة أممية لتقييم الوضع في شمال غزة.

وصرح بلينكن للصحافيين إثر محادثات مع رئيس الوزراء الإسرائيلي بنيامين نتانياهو “اتفقنا اليوم على خطة تتيح للامم المتحدة ارسال بعثة تقييم، ستحدد ما ينبغي القيام به للسماح للفلسطينيين النازحين بالعودة إلى منازلهم في شكل آمن تماماً في شمال غزة”.

كما قال “إسرائيل أكدت أنها لا تسعى لتوطين سكان غزة خارج القطاع”.

وتابع “على إسرائيل السماح بعودة الفلسطينيين إلى بيتوهم بمجرد أن تسمح الظروف”.

مرحلة أقل شدة

كذلك بين بلينكن أن الحملة الإسرائيلية في غزة ستنتقل إلى مرحلة جديدة أقل شدة.

وطالب بلينكن إسرائيل بالتحرك لوقف استهدافات المستوطنين التي تحول دون السلام، وأضاف “على إسرائيل العمل على قرارات حاسمة وسنعمل على تمكين السلطة الفلسطينية”.

كذلك قال “على السلطة الفلسطينية مسؤولية إصلاح نفسها”.

وتابع وزير الخارجية الأميركي “حريصون على عدم اتساع رقعة الصراع وإدخال المساعدات لغزة وإعادة الرهائن”.

حقوق الفلسطينيين ووقف العنف

كما أضاف “الدول العربية التي زرتها أكدت على حقوق الفلسطينيين وضرورة وقف العنف ضدهم”.

وأكد أن على إسرائيل اتخاذ قرارات حاسمة بشأن فرص السلام، مبيناً أن أميركا وإسرائيل تؤكدان أن الدبلوماسية هي الطريق الأمثل لتحقيق الأمن.

كذلك بين بلينكن أن العديد من دول الشرق الأوسط مستعدة للاستثمار في مستقبل غزة، لكنهم سيفعلون ذلك فقط في ظل وجود مسار واضح لإقامة دولة فلسطينية.

يذكر أن جولة بلينكن الإقليمية تشمل توقفا في الضفة الغربية ومصر يوم الأربعاء.

وهذه هي الزيارة الرابعة التي يقوم بها بلينكن إلى الشرق الأوسط منذ هجوم حماس على إسرائيل في 7 أكتوبر، والعملية العسكرية الإسرائيلية التي أدت لمقتل حوالي 23 ألف فلسطيني، معظمهم من النساء والأطفال، في غزة، وفقاً للسلطات الصحية الفلسطينية.

(المصدر: العربية نت)

Israel to appear before ICJ to counter South Africa’s Gaza case

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(Reuters) – Israel will appear before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague to contest South Africa’s genocide accusations over the war with Hamas in Gaza, an Israeli government spokesman said on Tuesday.

South Africa asked the ICJ on Friday for an urgent order declaring that Israel was in breach of its obligations under the 1948 Genocide Convention in its crackdown against Hamas.

“The State of Israel will appear before the International Court of Justice at The Hague to dispel South Africa’s absurd blood libel,” spokesman Eylon Levy told an online briefing.

“We assure South Africa’s leaders, history will judge you, and it will judge you without mercy,” Levy said.

South Africa has for decades backed the Palestinian cause for statehood in Israeli-occupied territories. It has likened the plight of Palestinians to those of the Black majority in South Africa during the apartheid era, a comparison Israel strongly denies.

The ICJ, sometimes known as the World Court, is the United Nations venue for resolving disputes between states. Israel’s foreign ministry has said the suit was “baseless.”

Lawyers representing South Africa are preparing for the hearing scheduled on Jan. 11 and 12, Clayson Monyela, a spokesperson for South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation, said in a post on the platform X.

The war was triggered by a cross-border attack by Hamas Islamist militants on Oct. 7, which Israel says killed 1,200 people.

Israel responded with an air and land assault that has killed more than 22,000 people, Palestinian health officials say. While its casualty figures do not differentiate between fighters and civilians, the ministry has said that 70% of Gaza’s dead are women and those under 18. Israel disputes Palestinian casualty figures and says it has killed 8,000 fighters.

Levy listed a series of measures Israel’s military has taken to minimize harm to non-combatants.

He said Hamas bore full moral responsibility for the war it started and was “waging from inside and underneath hospitals, schools, mosques, homes and UN facilities”, Levy said.

He added, without elaborating, that South Africa was complicit in Hamas’ crimes against Israelis.

Hamas denies using Gaza’s population as human shields.

Reporting by Maayan Lubell, additional reporting by Bhargav Acharya in Johannesburg; Editing by Andrew Heavens, Tomasz Janowski and Barbara Lewis