South Africa Requests ‘Urgent’ Intervention by the World Court, Cessation of Israeli Assault on Rafah

May 12—South Africa took the moral stand to defend the Palestinian peoples' human right to exist again on May 10, filing with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) an ”urgent" request for the court to intervene against Israel based on “new facts,' which concern Israel's bloodthirsty Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ordered assault on the last standing Gazan city, Rafah. Specifically, the South African legal filing seeks for the ICJ to change or modify the “provisional measures” of its January 26 Order due to events unfolding in Rafah, arguing that previous “measures” by the Court “are not capable of ‘fully addressing’ changed … facts on the ground.” 

South Africa’s “urgent request” states, in part:

“The situation brought about by the Israeli assault on Rafah, and the extreme risk it poses to humanitarian supplies and basic services into Gaza, to the survival of the Palestinian medical system, and to the very survival of Palestinians in Gaza as a group, 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.”

The ICJ’s January 26 Order had already found “plausible” violations of the Palestinian peoples’ rights, protected by the Genocide Convention, based on facts presented by South Africa in an October filing. South Africa now notes Israel’s “contemptuous” disregard for the Court’s Order, detailing 19 “new facts” which “urgently … indicate” the need for the ICJ to either issue a new, and/or modify, earlier “provisional measures” which directed “the State of Israel... [to] 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….” These new facts are “brought about by Israel’s assault on Rafah,” South Africa asserts, which all the world can see.

Among the “new facts” relating to circumstances on the ground in Rafah, South Africa details: a) 1.5 million displaced Palestinians have “nowhere” to “safely to flee to” as “so much of Gaza” has been “reduced to rubble”; b) “Rafah is where Gaza’s largest still-partially functioning hospitals are” found, so were attacks on Rafah’s hospitals to be like those done to all others in Gaza “a fatal blow to Gaza’s already collapsed healthcare system” will result; c) “new evidence of Israeli atrocities” citing the recent unearthing of “mass graves” found at Nasser and Al-Shifa Hospitals; d) Israel’s capture and closure of the two Rafah crossings has led to a shutoff of the trickle of “life-saving humanitarian aid and other goods,” resulting in “starving of the population.” Moreover, the closures are halting the entry or exit of “medics, medical evacuees,” and “Palestinians fleeing the conflict.” Similarly, choking off fuel for “sewage and water plants...[is] throttling the already crippled humanitarian operation.” On these actions, South Africa argues, the “current closure of the crossings has served to seal Gaza hermetically from the outside world,” and it notes that, as Rafah serves as “the primary hub for humanitarian assistance in Gaza, if Rafah falls, so too does Gaza.”

Also, South Africa’s filing rips the cover off of Israel’s charade of providing a "safe place" for 1.5 million Palestinians Rafah to be evacuated to:

“Israel has directed Palestinians in Rafah to flee to the so-called Al Mawasi ‘humanitarian area’ in the Khan Younis Governorate, which has already been largely reduced to ‘rubble and dirt’ by Israel, with unexploded ordnance posing extreme risks to displaced people. Al Mawasi itself consists in significant part of an uninhabitable sand dune, ‘lacking safety and essential services’ and ‘full of insect-borne diseases,’ bombed by Israel, and Palestinian children sheltering there have been shot in the head as they attempted to forage for food.”

The South African filing specifically requests, among others, the following provisional measures be issued:

"The State of Israel shall immediately withdraw and cease its military offensive in the Rafah Governorate;

“The State of Israel shall immediately take all effective measures to ensure and facilitate the unimpeded access to Gaza of United Nations and other officials engaged in the provision of humanitarian aid and assistance to the population of Gaza, as well as fact-finding missions, internationally mandated bodies or officials, investigators, and journalists, in order to assess and record conditions on the ground in Gaza and enable the effective preservation and retention of evidence, and shall ensure that its military does not act to prevent such access, provision, preservation or retention.”

Finally, South Africa seeks “urgent compliance” with earlier provisional measures issued by this Court which would require Israel to “relinquish” its control of the two Rafah crossings, removing “impediments to” entry or egress of medical, UN or other humanitarian personnel, or medical evacuees, and that pending a final resolution of this matter before the Court, it asks the Court for “additional and/or modified provisional measures” to achieve “immediate cessation of Israel’s military assaults on Rafah…”