President of the Judges, Judge Nawaf Salam gestures ahead of public hearings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Netherlands on legal consequences of Israeli actions in the Palestinian territory on February 26, 2024 ( Nikos Oikonomou – Anadolu Agency )
The Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas has called on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the international community to stop Israel’s aggression against the Gaza Strip and hold its leaders accountable for waging a war of starvation on civilians in the northern Gaza Strip, Anadolu Agency reported.
This came in a statement issued on the one-month anniversary of the ICJ’s decision in which it had ordered Israel to take measures to stop any actions leading to genocide in the Gaza Strip.
“The famine that our Palestinian people are experiencing in the northern Gaza Strip continues as a result of the Zionist siege and the war of starvation waged by the [Israeli] occupation and its Nazi army against children and civilians in full view of the world,” the statement said, stressing that the Israeli actions in Gaza are: “A challenge to the international community and all the laws it has put in place with the aim of protecting civilians and ensuring that their needs for food, water and medicine are met during conflicts and wars. The international inability and the American cover for the crime of starvation that the [Israeli] occupation uses as a weapon to achieve political goals is a disgrace to humanity that history will not erase,” the Hamas statement read.
The statement stressed that the US administration’s hiding behind misleading statements about the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip will not absolve it of its responsibility and involvement in war crimes committed against unarmed civilians:
“One month after the World Court’s decisions in which it ordered measures to stop any actions leading to genocide in the Gaza Strip, today, the world stands witness to the escalation of the occupation’s crimes, violations and its war to starve our people in the northern Gaza Strip.”
In January, the court ordered Israel to take “all measures within its power” to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza but fell short of ordering a ceasefire. It also ordered Israel to take “immediate and effective” measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance in the Gaza Strip.
Based in The Hague, the Netherlands, the court also ordered Israel to submit a report within a month of issuing the initial decision regarding the extent of its application of provisional measures. Orders issued by the court are legally binding, but it has no means of enforcing its rulings.
According to the United Nations (UN), acute food insecurity throughout the Gaza Strip has reached a “catastrophic” level, while the number of families struggling to feed their children and the risk of deaths resulting from hunger have significantly increased in the north of the Strip.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Israel prevented more than half of the aid shipments to northern Gaza last month, and there is increasing interference from the Israeli army on how and where aid is delivered.
Since 7 October the Israeli offensive into Gaza has pushed 85 per cent of the territory’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine. Sixty per cent of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.
Despite an international outcry, Israel now plans a ground invasion of Rafah, which holds 1.4 million refugees. For the first time since its establishment in 1948, Israel is being tried before the ICJ, the highest judicial body in the UN, on charges of committing the crime of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
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