UN court orders Israel to ensure acts of genocide are not committed in Gaza

The ​UN’s international court of justice has ordered Israel to ensure its forces do not commit acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, in a historic decision.

In an interim judgment delivered on Friday, the president of the court, Joan Donoghue, said Israel must “take all measures within its power” to prevent acts that fall within the scope of the genocide convention and must ensure “with immediate effect” that its forces do not commit any of the acts covered by the convention.

The court stopped short of granting South Africa’s request to order an immediate ceasefire to the war, which has destroyed much of the Gaza Strip and killed more than 25,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.

Related: Explainer: What is the ICJ and what is South Africa’s claim against Israel?

The ruling is not the final word from the court on whether Israel’s actions amount to genocide, but it provides a strong indication that the judges believe there is a credible risk to Palestinians under the genocide convention. Granting South Africa’s application for special measures, the court did not have to find whether Israel had committed genocide, which will be determined at a later date, but only that its acts were capable of falling within the genocide convention and that urgent preventive action was necessary.

Donoghue said Israel must “take all measures within its power to prevent” killing Palestinians, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction in whole or in part of the Palestinian group, and imposing measures intended to prevent births of Palestinians.

“The court is also of the view that Israel must take measures within its power to prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide in relation to the members of the Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip,” the US judge said. “The court further considers that Israel must take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”

Donoghue said Israel must ensure the preservation of evidence of alleged genocide and must report to the court within a month. The six provisional measures were approved by a wide majority of the judges – two of them by 16 to one and four by 15 to two.

A statement from the South African foreign ministry called it “a decisive victory for the international rule of law and a significant milestone in the search for justice for the Palestinian people” and expressed hope “that Israel will not act to frustrate the application of this order, as it has publicly threatened to do, but that it will instead act to comply with it fully, as it is bound to do”.

The Palestinian foreign minister, Riyad al-Maliki, called it a decision “in favour of humanity and international law” and “a wake-up call for Israel and actors who enabled its entrenched impunity”.

A senior Hamas official said Israel must be forced to implement the decision. The ICJ has no powers of enforcement and countries have ignored its orders in the past.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who previously pledged that “no one will stop us, not The Hague”, did not indicate whether the ruling would lead to any changes on the ground but expressed satisfaction that the court had not ordered a ceasefire.

“Israel’s commitment to international law is unwavering. Equally unwavering is our sacred commitment to continue to defend our country and defend our people. Like every country, Israel has an inherent right to defend itself,” he said. “The vile attempt to deny Israel this fundamental right is blatant discrimination against the Jewish state, and it was justly rejected. The charge of genocide levelled against Israel is not only false, it’s outrageous, and decent people everywhere should reject it.”

Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defence minister, whose call for a total siege of Gaza as part of a battle against “human animals” was noted by the court on Friday, said the ICJ had “granted South Africa’s antisemitic request”.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right national security minister, was the first Israeli official to react to the judgment, writing on X: “Hague-schmague.”

The judgment will increase pressure on Israel’s diplomatic and military backers, including the US and the UK, to take a more robust stance to address the humanitarian crisis.

Though there was disappointment among Palestinian supporters that the judges did not call for an immediate ceasefire, the decision will raise hopes of one in order to deliver the humanitarian assistance to Gaza’s 2.3 million-strong population, most of whom have been displaced by Israel’s bombing, that the ICJ said Israel must facilitate.

Many Palestinians are living in makeshift accommodation, including tents, UN-run shelters in schools or on the floors of hospitals, or outside in freezing, unsanitary conditions. There is a shortage of food, water and medical supplies.

More than 1% of Gaza’s population – 25,700 people – have been killed in the war, mostly women and children, and hundreds of thousands of buildings have been damaged or destroyed.

Donoghue said: “The court considers that the civilian population in the Gaza Strip remains extremely vulnerable. It recalls that the military operation conducted by Israel after 7 October 2023 has resulted inter alia in tens of thousands of deaths and injuries and the destruction of homes, schools, medical facilities and other vital infrastructure, as well as displacement on a massive scale. The court notes that the operation is ongoing, and that the prime minister of Israel announced on 18 January 2024 that the war, I quote, ‘will take many more long months’.”

While Israel has been scathing of the case against it and South Africa for bringing it, it was significant that it hired a strong legal team to rebut it rather than choosing not to cooperate.

Donoghue said the court was “gravely concerned” about the fate of the hostages abducted from Israel on 7 October “and calls for their immediate and unconditional release”.

The 1948 genocide convention, enacted after the mass murder of Jews in the Nazi Holocaust, defines it as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.

A Reuters report on Thursday said the director of the US CIA and his Israeli counterpart would meet Qatari officials in the coming days for talks on a second potential Gaza hostage deal and a pause in fighting.