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SA calls on ICJ to urgent action over Rafah

Alameen Templeton

“israel’s” assault on Rafah’s 1.5million refugees “is not only an escalation of the prevailing situation, but gives rise to new facts that are causing irreparable harm to the rights of the Palestinian people in Gaza,” South Africa has told the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

The Nazi state was brazenly escalating its genocide in full public glare in three ways, South Africa argued in its application on Friday:

  • Rafah is now effectively the last refuge in Gaza for 1.5 million Palestinians from Rafah and those displaced by Israeli action, and the last viable centre in Gaza for habitation, public administration, and the provision of basic public services, including medical care;
  • In seizing control of the Rafah and nearby Karem Abu Salem crossings, Israel is now in direct, total control of all entry and exit to Gaza, has cut it off from all humanitarian and medical supplies, goods and fuel on which the survival of the population of Gaza depends, and is preventing medical evacuations; and
  • The remaining population and medical facilities are at extreme risk, given the recent evidence of evacuation zones being treated as extermination zones, the mass destruction and mass graves at Gaza’s other hospitals, and the use by Israel of Artificial Intelligence (‘AI’) to identify ‘kill lists’.

These require urgent intervention and investigation, South Africa argues in its heads of argument.

“Not only is there nowhere for the 1.5 million displaced people and others in Rafah safely to flee to — so much of Gaza having been reduced to rubble — if Rafah is similarly destroyed there will be little left of Gaza or of the prospects for the survival of Palestinian life in the territory.

“Rafah is where Gaza’s largest still-partially functioning hospitals are situated: attacks on Rafah’s hospitals similar to those mounted by Israel against hospitals elsewhere in the Strip would therefore deal a fatal blow to Gaza’s already collapsed healthcare system.

“The two border crossings in Rafah which Israel has seized and currently shut down are the main entry points for life-saving humanitarian aid and other goods entering Gaza, and for the entry and exit of people, including humanitarians, medics, medical evacuees and Palestinians fleeing the conflict.

“Israel’s seizure of those crossings places Israel in control of all access to and from Gaza. Its current closure of the crossings has served to seal Gaza hermetically from the outside world, further crippling the delivery of aid to and within Gaza.

“As the primary humanitarian hub for humanitarian assistance in Gaza, if Rafah falls, so too does Gaza.

“As stated by a United Nations Relief and Works Agency (‘UNRWA’) spokesperson from Rafah on 8 May 2024, ‘the population [of Gaza] is on life support, and that life support is failing’.

“As this Request makes clear, urgent provisional measures are required to ensure the survival of Palestinians in Gaza.”

It highlights “the extreme brutality and indiscriminate nature of Israel’s attack on areas of Rafah both within and outside the evacuation zone. Videos posted on social media by Israeli soldiers record them firing directly on areas where tents are pitched by displaced Palestinians,” it notes.

Zionist brutality cannot be ignored: “There is recently-published testimony from Israeli soldiers who have served in Gaza that Israeli soldiers treat evacuation zones as “zones of extermination” in which all remaining Palestinians are considered to be legitimate targets.”

This, plus the Nazi assault on Gaza’s hospitals, require urgent and immediate intervention, the application says, adding: “This represents a change in the situation and a point of no return for Gaza’s already broken health system, which has been systematically destroyed by Israel over the course of the past seven months, and which would “not be able to cope with a surge in casualties and deaths that a Rafah incursion would cause”.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says the mass evacuation ordered by Israel in Rafah “is impossible to carry out safely”.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (‘UNICEF’) is warning of “catastrophic risks” in evacuating the 600,000 children estimated to be sheltering there, many of them disabled, orphaned or alone.

The evacuation corridors are themselves “likely mined or littered with unexploded ordnance”, South Africa says.

Israel’s practice of separating Palestinian men from women and children as they attempt to flee along purported “safe routes” is reminiscent of the genocidal practices at Srebrenica, it adds.

Rafah’s terrified refugees have been told to evacuate to Al Mawasi, 20km away, that has largely been rejduced to “rubble and dirt” by “israel”, located as it is on an “uninhabitable sand dune”.

It is “lacking safety and essential services” and “full of insect-borne diseases, with people living crowded in tents and outdoors”. The camp has itself been repeatedly bombed by Israel, and Palestinian children sheltering there have been shot in the head as they attempted to forage for food.”

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