The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is expected to deliver its judgment this afternoon on South Africa’s request to order Israel to stop military operations in Rafah.

South Africa presented oral arguments before the court in The Hague, Netherlands, a week ago. It appealed to the ICJ to modify the provisional measures issued in January last year and last month.

The judgment follows the application by International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Karim Khan for arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Dr. Atilla Kisla from the Southern Africa Litigation Centre says, “We’ve again seen strong submissions by the South African delegation, with strong reliance again on UN sources. The Israeli submission focused on undermining the South African contests, claiming there is no basis for any wrongdoing in terms of international law, on the part of Israel.”

“It will be very interesting to see how the court will actually deal with the requests that were made by the South African delegation—especially in terms of the repeated request that Israel should cease its military operations in the Gaza Strip and withdraw its army from the entirety of the Gaza Strip,” adds Kisla.

Source: SABC News