A day after the highest UN court ordered Israel to suspend military operations in the southern city, Israel attacked the Gaza Strip, including Rafah, as talks to establish a truce in the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 onslaught got began in Paris.
As efforts to negotiate a truce in the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack get underway in Paris, Israel attacked the Gaza Strip, particularly Rafah, on Saturday, one day after the top UN court ordered it to halt military operations in the southern city.
A few hours after the Israeli military declared that troops had found the bodies of three more hostages in northern Gaza, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) also ordered the immediate release of all hostages held by Palestinian militants.
Israel was also ordered to maintain open the Rafah gate between Egypt and Gaza, which it had closed earlier this month when it began its attack on the city, by the Hague-based court, whose rulings are legally binding but do not have direct enforcement procedures.
Israel, which maintained that the court had made a mistake, showed no signs of planning to reverse its position in Rafah.
In a joint statement with the spokesman for Israel’s foreign ministry, National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi stated, “Israel has not and will not carry out military operations in the Rafah area that create living conditions that could cause the destruction of the Palestinian civilian population, in whole or in part.”
Although the ICJ’s finding on Rafah was welcomed, the militant Palestinian group Hamas, which has controlled Gaza since 2007, objected to the ruling’s exclusion of the rest of the war-torn Gaza from its purview.
