Israel’s Military Operation in Rafah, the Last Bastion of the Gaza Strip: The U.S. Will Become a State

BERLIN and TEL AVIV — The United Nations’ highest court ordered Israel Friday to halt its offensive in Rafah, citing “immense risk” to the population of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have sought refuge in the southern Gaza city. But the court did not call for an end to Israel’s wider offensive across the Gaza Strip.

Israel’s government has accused South Africa of acting as a “legal arm of Hamas” by filing the case in The Hague and it says it is not bound by the court’s rulings.

Israel’s military operation in Rafah has been a long-running dispute with the U.S. Israel said it was necessary to invade the city, calling it Hamas’ last bastion in Gaza. A large military operation would lead to a crisis for more than one million Palestinians in the city.

Around 900,000 Palestinians have fled Rafah since Israel’s offensive began. Before Israel’s current military offensive, an estimated 1.3 million Palestinians displaced from elsewhere in Gaza were sheltering there.

In that case, a draft resolution ordering Israel to comply with the court order could put the United States in the uncomfortable position of having to come to Israel’s assistance and veto a vote on the matter. The U.S. has veto power over the UN and has previously decided that only negotiations can lead to a state.

This week also saw the International Criminal Court, a separate entity from the ICJ, submit requests from prosecutor Karim Khan to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar, Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, and Mohammed Deif, the leader of Hamas’ military wing, the Al Qassem Brigades.

Rob Schmitz reported from Berlin and Daniel Estrin reported from Tel Aviv. Anas Baba contributed to this story in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip. Abu Bakr Bashir contributed in The Hague. Hadeel Al- Shalchi was in Tel Aviv.

The top diplomat of the EU asked if the EU would take a stance toward Israel after the court ruling. ”We will have to choose,” he said, “between our support to international institutions of the rule of law or our support to Israel.”

The Israeli military response to the court’s decision in the Hague: “It is a moral disaster,” Netanyahu told the Israeli prime minister

Egypt halted aid shipments through the border with Gaza. The U.N. stopped distributing food in Rafah on May 21 due to lack of supplies and reported a surge in diseases from the mass displacement due to a lack of basic supplies.

Outside the courtroom in the Hague, pro-Palestinian demonstrators told NPR they were disappointed with the court’s decision because it stopped short of calling for a total end to Israel’s Gaza offensive.

The man who is staying in the ruins of a destroyed school in the decimated city of Khan Youns said that Netanyahu will not respect anyone. “He doesn’t respect the U.S. or the decisions of the court. Netanyahu doesn’t care about anyone and that’s how the decisions are made.

The political leaders condemned the court’s ruling. “History will judge those who stood by the Nazis of Hamas andISIS”, said Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid, a centrist, called the court’s decision a “moral disaster” by not ordering the return of Israeli hostages held by Hamas since its Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, which sparked the ongoing war.

An hour after the court ruling, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a phone meeting to consult Israel’s top legal official and senior government ministers and officials, Netanyahu’s office said.

In response to the court’s ruling, an Israeli government statement said the country intended to press on with its offensive in Rafah — in a way that would abide by Israel’s interpretation of the ruling.

Reading out the court’s ruling from the bench of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Court President Nawaf Salam noted that provisional measures ordered by the court earlier this year have not fully addressed the situation in Gaza and that conditions, particularly in Rafah, have deteriorated further.

Salam cited a report by the United Nations International Children’s Fund that estimated about half of 1.2 million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah were children, and he warned that “military operations there would result in, I quote, the few remaining basic services and infrastructure they need to survive being totally destroyed.”

The court ruling left enough wiggle room to allow Israel to continue its offensive there, according to Yuval Shany, a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute.

The 15-judge panel has given preliminary orders to reduce the death toll in Gaza three times this year.