Israel-Palestine live: Netanyahu rejects Hamas ceasefire proposal, vows ‘total victory’

“The court notes that the military operation has resulted in a large number of deaths and injuries, as well as massive destruction of homes, the forcible displacement of the vast majority of the population, and extensive damage to civilian infrastructure,” says ICJ President Donoghue.

President Donoghue said the court is not required to ascertain if any violations have been made by Israel of the genocide convention at this stage.

The ICJ must now decide if the current acts appear to be capable of falling within the realm of violations of the convention. The court finds that Israel has committed such acts.

"At least some acts appear to be capable of falling with the genocide convention," president Judge Donoghue says.

ICJ finds there is a dispute between Israel and South Africa, giving jurisdiction for court to rule on case.

Judge Donoghue begins her speech by referencing the Hamas attack inside Israel on 7 October and the subsquent large-scale military operation in Gaza by land, air and sea which has caused massive civilian casualties and extensive destruction to the besieged Strip.

Donoghue says that the court is acutely aware of the extent of the human tragedy unfolding in the region. 

Palestinians in Gaza are awaiting an interim ruling on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) genocide case against Israel.

The ICJ is set to convene shortly to rule on South Africa’s request for “provisional measures” against Israel over the unfolding genocide in Gaza.

Middle East Eye’s correspondent in Gaza, Mohammed al-Hajjar, says that the ruling will “mean a lot” to Palestinians in Gaza, however, questioned if Israel will abide by what is said.

“We have seen Israel bypass laws for the past 111 days and commit war crimes, Israel did not listen to any calls for a ceasefire or an end to the starvation. So what can now force them to stop?” he questioned. Despite this, Palestinians are grateful for the action taken by South Africa, he says.

“We thank South Africa a lot for their bravery and standing with us, especially against Israel and the US because Israel is not acting alone. We also hope in the future that the US will be held accountable for encouraging and supporting Israel in this war,” he added.

Al-Hajjar said that that for the past three months, Palestinians have faced bombings, slaughter and beatings, plunging Gaza into a humanitarian crisis.

“Regardless of politics, this is a humanitarian issue now. We have around 2 million people facing the cold, displacement, bombings and extreme difficulties,” he said.

Presiding Judge Joan Donoghue kicks off proceedings, welcoming the representatives of South Africa and Israel.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is about to start delivering  ruling on the provisional measures requested by South Africa in its genocide case against Israel, you can watch below.

A Jewish prayer shawl worn by Levi Simon, a British man fighting for the Israeli army in Gaza who filmed himself rummaging through women’s underwear in an abandoned Palestinian home, belonged to a celebrated Holocaust survivor who warned of the dangers of hatred and racism.

Social media footage posted in November shows Simon wearing the shawl, known as a tallit, in a building in Gaza.

“This tallit I am wearing belonged to a Holocaust survivor by the name of Zigi. I am right now inside of Gaza writing ‘Am Yisrael Chai’ to make sure nothing like this will ever happen again,” Simon says in the clip, drawing a Star of David and writing the Hebrew phrase meaning “the people of Israel live” on the wall.

According to the accompanying text, the tallit was donated by the family of Zigi Shipper, a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau and other Nazi camps from Lodz, Poland, who moved to the UK after the Second World War and died last January aged 93.

But a close friend and fellow survivor told Middle East Eye he believed Shipper would have been "astounded and upset" to learn of the way in which his tallit had been used in Gaza.

Read more: British man fighting for Israel wore shawl of Holocaust survivor who said ‘do not hate’

The head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) called for a ceasefire in Gaza and a “true solution” to the current Israel-Hamas conflict in an emotional plea to the global health body’s governing body on Thursday.

“I’m a true believer because of my own experience that war doesn’t bring solution, except more war, more hatred, more agony, more destruction. So let’s choose peace and resolve this issue politically,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesu told the executive board in Geneva during a meeting.

“I think all of you have said the two-state solution and so on, and hope this war will end and move into a true solution,” he said, before breaking down, describing the current situation as “beyond words”.

Osama Hamdan, Hamas spokesperson: “First, if the court in The Hague issues a ruling to cease fire, the Hamas movement will abide by the ceasefire as long as the enemy abides by it. Second, Hamas will release the Zionist prisoners detained if the occupying state releases all the Palestinian prisoners detained by it.”

Eylon Levy, an Israeli government official: “We expect the ICJ to throw out these spurious and suspicious charges.”

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) will deliver its ruling today on the emergency measures requested by South Africa in its genocide case against Israel this afternoon at 13:00 pm, local time at The Hague.

The ICJ is not expected to deal with the main question of whether Israel is committing genocide. The court will instead look at provisional measures requested by South Africa, including a request for Israel to suspend its military operations in the Gaza Strip.

A group of settlers apparently broke through the heavily militarised border wall between Israel and Gaza on Thursday sending their children into the Strip holding Israeli flags. 

Israeli settlers alongside members of the far-right Israeli cabinet have been pushing to re-establish settlements in the Gaza Strip. 

As a British-Palestinian with a lifetime of seeing atrocities committed against my people, the current onslaught has felt worse than any other.

As an aid worker with decades of experiencing humanitarian crises, the growing suffering in Gaza seems the most severe I have seen. Sadly, this is not a feeling grounded in recency bias, this is a reality grounded in fact.

The UN’s hunger monitoring agency, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, has confirmed that “this is the highest share of people facing high levels of acute food insecurity that the IPC initiative has ever classified for any given area or country”.

In a world where the depravity of inhumanity has seldom been impeded, the people of Gaza are now enduring actions historic in our species’ ability to inflict death and destruction on others. 

Catastrophic famine is being ushered in because people are being deliberately starved of the bare essentials humans need to survive - food and water.

Read more: Palestinians are starving. Airdropping of aid must begin immediately

Nasser Hospital, the main medical facility in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, has completely run out of food, anaesthetics and painkillers as a "result of the Israeli siege imposed on it for the fifth day," said spokesman for the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza.

"There are 150 health personnel, 350 patients, and hundreds of displaced families in the Nasser Medical Complex in catastrophic conditions of starvation, targeting, and lack of treatment," said Dr Ashraf al-Qudra. 

Nasser Hospital is functioning with only 10 percent of its personnel and the conditions are "inhumane", said the Palestinian health ministry on Thursday.