Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor (right) speaks to Zane Dangor, Director-General of the Department of International Relations and Cooperation, on 26 January 2024 before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, delivers an order on South Africa’s genocide case against Israel. (Photo: Michel Porro / Getty Images) 
The South African government has urged the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to intervene and order Israel to halt its airstrikes on Rafah in southern Gaza.
In a statement on Tuesday, Presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said South Africa had made an urgent request to the ICJ to consider whether Israel’s decision to extend its military operations in Rafah required that the court use its power to prevent further breaches of the rights of Palestinians in Gaza.
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South Africa filed its request to the World Court on Monday, 12 February, said Magwenya.
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/tori-ICJ-rafah-MAIN-1.jpg "Palestinians amid the rubble outside the destroyed Al-Huda mosque following Israeli military operations in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, on Monday, 12 February 2024. (Photo Ahmad Salem / Bloomberg via Getty Images)")
The request comes just over a month after the country presented its genocide case against Israel at the ICJ in The Hague.
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“It is gravely concerning that the unprecedented military offensive against Rafah, as announced by the State of Israel, has already led to and will result in further large-scale killing, harm and destruction,” said Magwenya.
“This would be in serious and irreparable breach both of the Genocide Convention and of the Court’s order of 26 January 2024,” he continued.
Magwenya said that under Article 75(1) of the Rules of the Court: “The Court may at any time decide to examine proprio motu whether the circumstances of the case require the indication of provisional measures which ought to be taken or complied with by any or all of the parties.”
South Africa filed an application at the ICJ on 29 December 2023, accusing Israel of genocide in its war on Gaza, and seeking to halt its military invasion, pending the court’s final decision on whether Israel is perpetrating genocide.
In a ruling handed down by ICJ President Judge Joan Donoghue last month, the ICJ ordered that Israel stop killing and harming people in Gaza and that it report provisional measures to the Court within a month.
While the Court stopped short of ordering a ceasefire, International Relations Minister Naledi Pandor said the effect of the order was tantamount to a ceasefire, Daily Maverick’s Ferial Haffajee reported.
South Africa’s request to the ICJ comes as Pandor told Parliament on Tuesday that the provisional measures set out by the judges of the ICJ have been ignored by Israel.
She said Israel is “massacring civilians in Rafah – the place they were ordered to flee to as a safe area”.
Pandor added that the DA – as the official opposition – was silent in condemnation of Israeli atrocities.
The airstrikes and missile attacks that continue to devastate the Gaza Strip have killed more than 28,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 68,000, most of them women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
Israel is currently bombing Rafah, a city in southern Gaza bordering Egypt.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Friday that a military invasion of Rafah to destroy Hamas was imminent.
Despite pleas from humanitarian organisations, Netanyahu insisted that the military operation was necessary, saying that “total victory” was within reach.
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/tori-ICJ-rafah-3.jpg "Palestinians collect papers from the destroyed Al-Huda mosque after Israeli military operations in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, on Monday, 12 February 2024. (Photo: Ahmad Salem / Bloomberg via Getty Images)")
On Monday, Israel’s military said it had freed two Israeli hostages in Rafah. This came as a wave of airstrikes on the city killed scores of Palestinians, The Washington Post reported.
Roughly 1.4 million Palestinians are sheltering in Rafah, of which 600,000 are children, according to the United Nations.
Since the beginning of Israel’s war against Hamas in response to its 7 October attacks which killed 1,200 people in Israel, the Israeli military has repeatedly told Palestinians to evacuate to the south of Gaza ahead of a ground invasion.
Now, the majority of the enclave’s roughly 2.2 million people are seeking refuge in makeshift tents in Rafah – making it one of the most densely populated areas on earth.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned in a post on X on Friday that Israeli military action in Rafah “would exponentially increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare with untold regional consequences.”
Half of Gaza’s population is now crammed into Rafah with nowhere to go.
Reports that the Israeli military intends to focus next on Rafah are alarming.
Such an action would exponentially increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare with untold regional consequences.
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) February 8, 2024
The Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Ghebreyesus, warned that Israel’s plan to evacuate Palestinians sheltering in Rafah was “extremely worrying”, and that proceeding with the plan “could have gravely devastating consequences for the 1.4 million people who have nowhere left to go.” DM