Middle East Crisis: Top U.N. Court Decision Adds to Israel’s Growing Isolation (2024)

Top U.N. court decision adds to Israel’s growing isolation.

On Friday, the International Court of Justice, an arm of the United Nations, ordered Israel to suspend its military campaign in Rafah in southern Gaza, adding to a growing list of diplomatic and legal moves against Israel that have undermined its international standing.

The ruling came just days after prosecutors at the International Criminal Court, another international tribunal, called for the arrest of Israel’s prime minister and defense minister, a move that was supported by some longstanding partners of Israel, including France.

The order came the same week that three European countries took the coordinated step of recognizing Palestine as a state. It also followed widespread university campus protests in the United States against Israel’s campaign in Gaza, as well as decisions by Turkey to suspend trade with Israel and by Belize, Bolivia and Colombia to break diplomatic ties with Israel.

“This is not North Korea or Belarus or Myanmar levels of isolation — but it is isolation,” said Alon Pinkas, Israel’s former consul general in New York. “It creates a tremendous sense of pressure.”

The latest move by the International Court of Justice may not have immediate practical effects: Under the terms of the order, Israel has a month to show how it has complied with its instructions. Even if Israel ignores the order, the I.C.J. has no means of enforcing it. In theory, the United Nations Security Council can issue a resolution on the matter, but the United States, Israel’s most powerful ally, has a permanent seat on the council, enabling it to veto any measure against Israel.

But, put together, the moves against Israel show not only the ebbing of Israel’s international reputation but also the dwindling of American influence, said Itamar Rabinovich, Israel’s former ambassador to Washington, as the United States is increasingly unable to prevent American allies and international institutions from targeting its main partner in the Middle East.

“There is a change in the rules of the international politics,” Mr. Rabinovich said.

“The rest of the world is on the way toward overcoming the U.S.,” Mr. Rabinovich said, adding, “They are saying, ‘We cannot beat you in the U.N. but we now have the two international courts and we will shift to those places where you have no control.’”

Against that backdrop, the United States and other steadfast allies of Israel, like Germany, have adopted a more critical tone against the Israeli government, even as they try to defend it against foreign condemnation.

In the second week of the war, President Biden flew to Israel with a clear message: “You are not alone.” But in recent months, he has expressed increasing concern about Israel’s counterattack in Gaza, calling its strategy a “mistake” and some of its actions “outrageous.”

He also paused a shipment of bombs to Israel, signaling his opposition to Israel’s plans to invade the urban core of Rafah.

Germany’s position has shifted subtly, too, with Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, asking during a visit to Tel Aviv in March, “No matter how important the goal, can it justify such terribly high costs?”

Still, Israel may feel able to continue the war as long as the United States maintains most of its financial and military aid. In April, Congress voted to provide Israel with another $15 billion in military aid, highlighting that Washington broadly continues to act in Israel’s favor even as some American leaders express verbal reservations.

Mr. Biden will need to weigh any further moves against Israel with the political cost. While a stronger stance could boost him in the eyes of his left-leaning base, it could also allow Republicans to present themselves as better allies of Israel. Speaker Mike Johnson has been signaling for weeks that he intends to invite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak before Congress.

Within Israel, however, the moves against its government could bolster Mr. Netanyahu, analysts said. Days after ministers in his government spoke out against Mr. Netanyahu’s leadership, the court decisions have prompted those same ministers to close ranks and show a united front.

The rebukes from foreign governments and institutions also provide Mr. Netanyahu with another chance to present himself as Israel’s defender, shoring up his ebbing domestic support, Mr. Pinkas, the former diplomat, said.

“It plays into his narrative that the world is against us and I’m standing tall,” he said.

Still, Mr. Netanyahu’s critics said that Israel’s standing would be higher had he not squandered the outpouring of good will for Israelis that followed the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7.

Opposition to Israel’s war conduct has been partly spurred by contentious comments by government ministers, who have called for Israel to maintain permanent control over Gaza or even to drop an atomic bomb on the territory. Israel’s security services have also often failed to prevent Israeli civilians from obstructing aid convoys and ransacking their cargo.

Yair Lapid, the leader of Israel’s opposition, criticized the court ruling, noting, “Israel was the one that was brutally attacked from Gaza and was forced to defend itself against a horrific terrorist organization.” But he also said that the ruling could have been averted if a “sane and professional government would have prevented insane statements by ministers, stopped criminals who torch aid trucks and performed quiet and effective political work.”

Israel’s isolation has extended to the cultural and academic worlds, where decades-old calls to boycott Israeli artists and universities have gathered momentum.

In recent months, universities in countries including Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia and Spain have announced that they have cut ties with Israeli counterparts or are considering doing so.

“We want to give a clear message that the warfare that the State of Israel is now carrying out in Gaza is unacceptable, and undermines the democratic foundation on which all universities must build,” the University of Southeastern Norway said in a statement in February after terminating its exchange programs with two Israeli colleges.

Thousands of artists signed an open letter in February calling for the organizers of the Venice Biennale, one of the art world’s most important festivals, to bar Israel from participating in this year’s gathering.

Though the festival ignored the petition, the Israeli team behind the country’s entry chose to close its display to the public until a cease-fire was reached. But that failed to quell the opposition to their presence, and more than 100 protesters — some of them artists involved in the Biennale — marched through the festival site in April, chanting “Viva Palestina.”

Johnatan Reiss contributed reporting from Tel Aviv and Jonathan Rosen from Jerusalem.

The World Court ruling is a blow to Israel’s standing, but the court has no enforcement powers.

Still, the 13-2 ruling puts more pressure on the Netanyahu government over the conduct of the war. Gazan authorities say at least 35,000 people have been killed, without distinguishing between combatants and civilians, and hundreds of thousands have been forced to flee repeatedly to avoid the Israeli bombardment, which has devastated most of the enclave.

“The court considers that in conformity with obligations under the Genocide Convention, Israel must immediately halt its military offensive, and any other action in the Rafah governorate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part,” the court’s president, Nawaf Salam, said in reading the ruling.

The ruling is the latest in a series of rebukes of Israel over the conduct of its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The court emphasized the need for “the unhindered provision at scale by all concerned of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance,” including maintaining open land crossings and, in particular, the Rafah crossing, which Israel seized more than two weeks ago. It ordered Israel to “immediately take all effective measures to ensure and facilitate the unimpeded access” of United Nations investigators into Gaza. The judges also ordered Israel to submit a report on the measures it had taken to implement the decision within a month.

A South African legal team had urged the I.C.J., the United Nations’ top court, last week to put further constraints on Israel’s incursion in Rafah, saying it was “the last step in the destruction of Gaza and its people.”

Israel’s military has said that since early May, it has been conducting a precise, targeted offensive against Hamas in Rafah, and is fighting in neighborhoods near the heart of the city. More than a million people who fled other parts of Gaza were sheltering in Rafah, but most have fled this month.

Israel’s deputy attorney general for international law, Gilad Noam, and other Israeli lawyers rejected the claims before the court last week, calling South Africa’s case an “inversion of reality.”

In a statement, the Israeli government said its military “has not and will not” take actions that would lead to the partial or complete destruction of the civilian population of Rafah. In effect, it said that the court’s decision has no bearing on Israel’s offensive because the military is not committing the prohibited acts.

Satellite imagery of Rafah from May 22 showed damage and clearing reaching around four miles into Gaza from the border with Israel toward Rafah’s center.

Some far-right allies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the court order and suggested that Israel should not comply. “There ought to be one response: the conquest of Rafah, the escalation of military pressure, and the utter shattering of Hamas until the achievement of total victory,” Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister, said in a statement.

Adil Haque, a professor of law at Rutgers Law School, said the ruling restricts Israel’s offensive in and around Rafah, but leaves it some room to defend itself.

“Large-scale military operations in or around Rafah are likely off the table because they will lead to mass death and displacement of civilians,” he said. “But the targeted operations to specifically respond to rocket fire or to rescue hostages, in principle, should still be on the table.”

“Israel can take the legally safe course and keep its operations strictly limited,” he added, “or it can take the legally risky course and test the court’s patience.”

Dire Tladi, a South African judge on the court, clarified in a separate opinion that “legitimate defensive actions, within the strict confines of international law, to repel specific attacks,” would be consistent with the court’s ruling. But “the continuation of the offensive military operation in Rafah, and elsewhere,” would not.

South Africa argued that Israel’s control over the two major border crossings in southern Gaza, at Rafah and Kerem Shalom, prevented enough aid from getting in, plunging Gaza into “unprecedented levels of humanitarian need.” Few aid trucks are entering, according to U.N. data, but many commercial trucks — which carry goods to sell rather than to distribute free — have entered the enclave.

The hearings are part of South Africa’s case, filed in December, accusing Israel of genocide, which Israel strongly denies. In late January, the court ordered Israel to do more to prevent acts of genocide, but stopped short of calling for a cease-fire. The main body of the case, dealing with genocide, is not expected to start until next year.

In March, in its strongest language to that point, the court ordered Israel to stop obstructing humanitarian aid to Gaza as severe hunger there spread, open more border crossings for supplies and provide “full cooperation” with the United Nations.

Judge Salam said the situation in Gaza had deteriorated since March, and was now “to be characterized as disastrous.”

Israel launched its military operation in retaliation for the Oct. 7 attacks that officials say killed 1,200 people and led to the abduction of about 250 others into Gaza. The court reiterated its call for the “immediate and unconditional release” of the hostages still held by Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza.

Lauren Leatherby contributed reporting.

Israel says its military operations in Rafah don’t — and won’t — violate the World Court’s order.

It said that Israel’s campaign in Gaza after the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks has complied with international law, and also said that the Israeli authorities would also allow humanitarian aid to flow into the Gaza Strip and keep open the Gazan side of the Rafah crossing, which Israeli forces seized two weeks ago. The statement reflected critical requests in the court’s order, without formally saying Israel would comply.

But it was unclear how the court’s decision would shape Israeli military actions on the ground. In the decision, the judges ordered Israel to halt its offensive in Rafah — which has so far displaced more than 800,000, according to the United Nations — but did not specifically define the extent to which Israel could pursue more limited operations there.

Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s war cabinet, spoke with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken on Friday afternoon. They discussed the court’s ruling, as well as the decision by the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor to request arrest warrants for top leaders of Israel and Hamas, Mr. Gantz’s office said in a statement.

According to Mr. Gantz’s office, he thanked Mr. Blinken for “American support for Israel and its legitimacy to continue fighting,” adding that there was “critical meaning to that given the court’s decision.”

The I.C.J. decision was the latest international rebuke for an increasingly isolated Israel, in a week in which three European countries announced they would unilaterally recognize the State of Palestine, despite Israel’s objections, and the I.C.C. chief prosecutor said he was pursuing arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister, on war crimes. The chief prosecutor also said he was seeking arrest warrants for leaders of Hamas on charges against humanity.

Yair Lapid, who leads Israel’s parliamentary opposition, denounced the World Court’s ruling. But, had Mr. Netanyahu’s government behaved more responsibly, Mr. Lapid added, it “could and should” have avoided such a damaging decision by the judges.

“A sane and professional government would have prevented insane statements by ministers, stopped criminals who torch aid trucks and performed quiet and effective political work,” Mr. Lapid wrote on social media. “We won’t win with this government.”

Mr. Netanyahu’s far-right partners were quick to assert on Friday that Israel should not heed the court’s order.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right Israeli national security minister, said Israel should discard it altogether. “There ought to be one response: the conquest of Rafah, the escalation of military pressure, and the utter shattering of Hamas until the achievement of total victory,” Mr. Ben-Gvir said in a statement.

The decision sharpened a dilemma for Israel over its military operation in Rafah. Israeli officials have vowed to operate there in order to dismantle Hamas’s rule, despite international objection over the mass displacement of Palestinians who had been sheltering there.

Before Israel began its assault on Rafah, Hamas had established four militant battalions in the area, Israeli officials said, as well as dozens of cross-border tunnels that enabled the Palestinian armed group to smuggle in weapons and ammunition, circumventing an Israeli-Egyptian blockade.

The court’s decision has enough ambiguity to give the Israeli military flexibility, as long as it reins in its campaign in Rafah, legal analysts said, though that would anger some hard-liners in the Israeli government.

“This decision does not order a halt to every military action in Rafah — only military activity that does not enable life to continue in Rafah,” said Michael Sfard, a prominent Israeli human rights lawyer. “At the same time, if Israel wants to comply with the ruling — it will have to scale down operations considerably.”

With the potential for international arrest warrants threatening its prime minister and defense minister, Israel is caught in a “legal whirlwind,” Mr. Sfard said. “International law has now become a major actor in the conflict.”

If Israel is believed to have violated the International Court of Justice’s decision, the country could find itself called before the United Nations Security Council, which is charged with enforcing such orders, said Pnina Sharvit Baruch, a former Israeli military legal adviser. In such a situation, she said, the United States would likely veto moves to penalize Israel.

“But if Israel finds a way to operate in Rafah without making the humanitarian crisis more severe, on principle we won’t be in violation of the order,” Ms. Sharvit Baruch said, adding Israel was more likely to buck the decision should a U.N. commission charged with investigating genocide in Gaza seek access to the Palestinian enclave.

Here is what legal scholars have to say about the ruling.

“The court is signaling to Israel, ‘Do not worsen the situation because that may cross the red line of the Genocide Convention,’” Mr. Scheffer said.

Several analysts said they expected that Israel would ignore the order to halt the military operations in Rafah and that some countries would call a meeting of the United Nations Security Council.

“This is an open invitation for the U.N. Security Council to act,’‘ said Stephen J. Rapp, a former international prosecutor and former American ambassador for war crimes issues. “It would come down to the U.S. to protect Israel with a veto, which in turn would weaken Washington’s ability to call for the rule of law elsewhere in the world.”

Mr. Rapp said the best solution would be for Israel to declare a victory over Hamas and wind down the offensive.

Here are some highlights of the ruling, legal scholars said:

• Lawyers familiar with the International Court of Justice said the judges’ use of the word “shall” in the order made it a particularly forceful directive. The order says Israel “shall immediately halt its military offensive, and any other action in the Rafah Governorate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”

• The order also says Israel must open the border with Egypt at Rafah, which it seized earlier this month, “for unhindered provision at scale of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance.”

• In addition, the order directs Israel to “take effective measures to ensure the unimpeded access to the Gaza Strip of any commission of inquiry, fact-finding mission or other investigative body mandated by competent organs of the United Nations to investigate allegations of genocide.”

• The order says Israel must submit a report to the court on all measures within a month.

• The court reiterated its “grave concern over the fate of the hostages taken in the attack in Israel” on Oct. 7, and called for their immediate release.

• The judges said the forced evacuation of civilians from Rafah was not enough to prevent the risk of genocide as defined under international law. More than 800,000 people have heeded Israeli warnings to leave the city in advance of the offensive, but the court said Israel had not provided enough information to the court about their safety. The judges noted the areas where many people were ordered to go lacked safe water supplies, sanitation, food or shelter and other needs to ensure their survival. The court was not convinced the evacuation effort and related measures were sufficient to alleviate the immense risks to their survival.

Fuel and humanitarian aid will be able to enter Gaza through Kerem Shalom, the White House said.

For months, Kerem Shalom was one of two main land crossings into Gaza through which desperately needed food, medicine and fuel could enter the enclave. The other, between Egypt at Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza, has also been the main way for sick and wounded Gazans to flee the war.

In early May, after Israeli troops seized the Rafah crossing as part of a long-awaited advance toward the city, the border crossing there shut down. While Israel has also opened crossings into northern Gaza, the shuttering of Rafah limited how much international aid could make its way into the enclave. Israel and Egypt traded blame over the holdup.

In the weeks before Israel seized the Rafah crossing, widespread hunger had begun to ease in parts of Gaza amid a surge in aid, according to residents of the enclave. But after the assault, more than 800,000 people fled Rafah, and getting relief into Gaza — and from there to those who need it — became even more difficult.

When the Rafah crossing closed, the Egyptian government initially held out on sending aid trucks toward Kerem Shalom, in what American and Israeli officials called an attempt to pressure Israel to back down from its operation in Rafah.

Mr. el-Sisi’s office said the decision was a “temporary measure” until “a new legal measure to resume operations at Rafah crossing” was established. In the White House readout, President Biden said he was committed to reopening the crossing “with arrangements acceptable to both Egypt and Israel” and planned to send a senior team to Cairo next week for further talks.

Aid and human rights groups hailed the international court’s ruling, but said nations must pressure Israel to comply.

But the court has no means of enforcing its orders and Israel has resisted international pressure to halt its air and land offensive in Gaza. That campaign has killed at least 35,000 people, many of them women and children, according to health officials.

The Israeli campaign has also forced most people from their homes, reduced much of the territory to ruins and left many people with inadequate food, medicine, shelter or sanitation. Aid organizations blame Israel for the dire conditions, arguing that Israeli forces tightly control the routes though which aid enters and have slowed down its delivery with onerous inspections.

“The International Court of Justice’s order underlines the gravity of the situation facing Palestinians in Gaza, who have for months endured the blocking of basic services and humanitarian aid amid continued fighting,” said Balkees Jarrah, associate international justice director at Human Rights Watch.

“Nowhere in Gaza is safe, and civilians there are facing famine,” she said. “And yet the Israeli government continues to flout the World Court’s binding orders by obstructing the entry of lifesaving aid and services.”

The international court’s decision also demands a major influx of food and other supplies to Gaza, which have been restricted by an Israeli blockade.

The ruling could lead to relief for Gaza, but only if countries use their leverage to press Israel to enforce the court’s measures, including through arms embargoes and sanctions, Ms. Jarrah said.

Aid groups that have been on the front lines of delivering humanitarian assistance in Gaza said the decision added much-needed international pressure to protect Palestinians sheltering in Rafah. More than a million Gazans sought shelter in Rafah, fleeing the Israeli invasion, but since Israel began an ground offensive into the city and the surrounding area on May 6, most of those people have been forced to move once again.

“The Rafah incursion has brought the devastating humanitarian fallout we predicted and feared,” said Kate Phillips-Barrasso, vice president of global policy of Mercy Corps. “Regardless of its incremental nature, it has caused nearly 900,000 people — who are weak and have no remaining coping strategies — to flee to areas of middle Gaza where there is no infrastructure, severe crowding, unexploded ordnance, and almost no access to aid.”

Israel’s offensive, she added, “brought the humanitarian system to its knees.”

“If dramatic changes do not occur, including opening all border crossings to safely surge aid into these areas, we fear that a wave of secondary mortality will result,” she added, “with people succumbing to the combination of hunger, lack of clean water and sanitation, and the spread of disease in areas where there is little medical care.”

President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, in a statement published in Palestinian state media, welcomed the court ruling, which he said reflected a global consensus condemning Israel’s actions.

Israel, he said, “considers itself a state above international law and cannot be held accountable as a result of the blind and biased American support.”

“This international consensus once again proves that the occupying state stands isolated,” the president added, “along with its allies who provide it with support, protection, and impunity.”

Hamas, the armed Palestinian group which led the Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel and had controlled Gaza for years, also welcomed the court’s decision.

Cease-fire negotiations between Hamas and Israel have dragged on for months and appear to be stalled.

Israeli forces recover the bodies of three more hostages in northern Gaza.

Roughly 125 living and dead hostages now remain in Gaza, according to the Israeli authorities, as talks for a cease-fire that would also secure their release have stalled. Israel and Hamas have conducted indirect negotiations for months in an attempt to clinch an agreement, but those talks collapsed in early May.

On Thursday, the Israeli prime minister’s office said the war cabinet had ordered its negotiating team to continue talks to reach a deal, but prospects appeared remote as Israel pursues its operation in Rafah, in southern Gaza. The Israeli government has faced rising criticism by some of the hostages’ family members, who say it has not gone far enough to reach an agreement.

“The recovery of their bodies is a silent but resolute reminder that the state of Israel is obligated to immediately dispatch negotiation teams with a clear demand to bring about a deal that will swiftly return all the hostages home,” said the Hostages Families Forum, a group that represents family members of the captives.

Over the past week, a total of seven bodies have been brought back to Israel for burial after being retrieved by Israeli soldiers and intelligence officers. They included Shani Louk, Mr. Radoux’s partner, an Israeli-German dual citizen who became a symbol of the brutality of the Hamas attack. Most of the seven hostages brought back had not been publicly declared presumed dead by the Israeli authorities.

The bodies were all found in Jabaliya, where the Israeli military has been operating since early this month in an attempt to root out a renewed Hamas insurgency. Four of the bodies, including Ms. Louk’s, were held in an underground tunnel, the Israeli military said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel publicly mourned the three hostages’ deaths and vowed to do “whatever is in our power” to bring home the remaining captives.

Originally from Brazil, Mr. Nisenbaum, a volunteer paramedic, lived in Sderot, an Israeli city near the border with Gaza. Admiral Hagari said that on the morning of Oct. 7, Mr. Nisenbaum had set out to retrieve his 4-year-old granddaughter, who was with her father at the Re’im military base, which was under heavy attack by Hamas. But he never made it, Admiral Hagari said, as Palestinian militants ambushed him on the road.

Mr. Yablonka and Mr. Radoux both attended the Tribe of Nova trance-music festival near Kibbutz Re’im. Palestinian militants gunned down Israeli civilians at the festival as they sought to flee through fields, drive away or hide in nearby bomb shelters. At least 360 people were killed during that attack, according to the Israeli authorities.

Israeli forces cut off access to a battered major hospital in northern Gaza.

“Now it is considered practically, because it is besieged, not operational,” said Dr. Sabbah, who had been at the hospital on Thursday. Many patients were receiving kidney dialysis on Thursday, he said, but they also left before the military cut off access. “The military has reached the entrances,” he said.

The blockade of Kamal Adwan came two days after the Israeli military ordered patients and staff at Al Awda Hospital near Jabaliya, another major medical center in northern Gaza, to evacuate on Wednesday and then raided the complex. About 30 people remained there, including medical staff and patients in critical condition who could not be transferred. Israeli forces destroyed doors and damaged equipment, Gazan officials said.

The Israeli military has repeatedly besieged and assaulted Gaza’s hospitals, contending that Hamas, the armed group that led the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, uses them as shields, with its fighters operating within the hospitals and from tunnels beneath them. Hamas and hospital administrators have denied the claims.

The Israeli military has taken journalists on tours of one hospital it raided and provided documents it says prove its claims about Hamas and hospitals. But there has been no independent verification of the claims.

The Israeli bombardment and raids by ground troops have put many of Gaza’s hospitals out of operation and only a few remain even partially functional. Nearly 500 medical workers have been killed in seven and a half months of fighting, and Israeli forces have detained dozens of others, according to the Gaza ministry of health.

Israeli forces besieged and then raided Kamal Adwan Hospital in December and detained its director. Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the largest in the enclave, has been raided three times during the war.

When asked about its forces at the hospital on Friday, the Israeli military said it “does not comment on the deployment of its forces.”

Dr. Sabbah said there were 15 to 20 doctors and nurses still inside Kamal Adwan, but no patients.

“They know there are medical personnel inside,” he said of the Israeli military. “We haven’t been informed if there is going to be a raid, but at any moment this can happen.”

Earlier this week, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health Organization, said on social media that Kamal Adwan had reportedly been struck four times, damaging the intensive care unit, reception, administration and the roof.

“Over the past few weeks, intense hostilities have reportedly occurred in the vicinity of the hospital that resulted in an increased influx of injured patients to the already overstretched facility,” Dr. Tedros wrote.

The Israeli military has returned to areas of northern and central Gaza it had previously seized, saying that fighters for Hamas and other groups had returned. The renewed Israeli assaults there have killed and wounded dozens, according to health officials.

The fighting in the north means that many Palestinians who had earlier fled that area but later returned to their homes have been forced to flee again, alongside people who had stayed in the area throughout the war, often in shelters.