5/24/2024–|Last updated: 5/24/202407:36 PM (Mecca time)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a meeting on Friday to discuss a response to the International Court of Justice’s decision demanding that Tel Aviv stop its military operations on the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, while Israeli ministers expressed their strong rejection of the decision.
The newspaper “Israel Hayom” reported that Netanyahu decided to hold an emergency meeting, to which the Ministers of the War Council, Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot, were not invited, to discuss the response to the court’s decision.
For its part, Israeli Army Radio said that Gantz made contact with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken against the backdrop of the International Court of Justice’s decision.
Meanwhile, Gantz claimed that Tel Aviv would continue fighting in the city of Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, in accordance with international law, according to what was reported by Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.
He continued that the Israeli army will do everything in its power to avoid harming the civilian population, not because of the International Court of Justice, but primarily because of the Israeli identity, according to his claim.
Israeli anger
In response to the decision, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir described the International Court of Justice as “anti-Semitic.”
He said – via the X platform – that the response to the court’s decision must have only one answer, which is the occupation of Rafah, increasing military pressure, and the complete defeat of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) until complete victory in the war is achieved, as he put it.
Meanwhile, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich confirmed that Tel Aviv will not accept the ruling of the International Court of Justice ordering it to stop its military operation in the city of Rafah.
He added that demanding that Israel stop the “war on Hamas” is equivalent to asking it to decide to disappear from existence, stressing that the Israelis will not agree to that.
In the same way, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said that the Court of Justice’s decision means “asking Israel not to resist,” considering its decision to be “immoral.”
Return of detainees
For his part, Israeli Culture Minister Miki Zohar said, “Judges of the Court of Justice are invited to Gaza to persuade Hamas to return the detainees,” and until that happens there is no possibility of stopping the fighting in Rafah.
He added that stopping the Rafah attack represented a “spit” in the face of the detainees, as he described it.
As for Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid, he considered the court’s failure to link the cessation of fighting in Rafah to the return of detainees “a moral collapse and a moral disaster,” he said.
Court decision
With the approval of 13 of its members and the rejection of two members, the Court of Justice issued new temporary measures demanding that Israel immediately stop its attack on Rafah, keep the Rafah crossing open to facilitate the entry of aid into Gaza, and submit a report to the court within a month on the steps it has taken in this regard.
These new measures came from the court in response to a request from South Africa as part of a comprehensive lawsuit filed at the end of last December, accusing Tel Aviv of committing genocide crimes in the Gaza Strip.
The court’s decisions are binding on all members of the United Nations, including Israel, and the UN Security Council is the guarantor of the implementation of the court’s order.