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SvennoJ on 06 March 2024
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South Africa asks ICJ for more measures against Israel

South Africa has asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to order additional emergency measures against Israel, which it says is breaching the measures already in place, the United Nations’ top court says.

In January the World Court, as the ICJ is also known, ordered Israel to refrain from any acts that could fall under the UN’s Genocide Convention and to ensure its troops commit no genocidal acts against Palestinians, after South Africa accused Israel of state-led genocide.

In February, South Africa had lodged an “urgent request” with the ICJ to consider whether Israel’s military operations targeting Rafah breach provisional orders the court handed down on January 26.




The court can't do anything though, and the UNSC, supposed to enforce the ICJ's rulings, can't act due to US' veto.
But good to keep the broken international justice system in the spotlight.

South Africa asks ICJ for immediate ceasefire in Gaza, citing famine

The South African presidency says the country has “approached the International Court of Justice (ICJ) with an urgent application for the provisional measures the court ordered on 26 January 2024 to be strengthened” to prevent famine in Gaza.

“The urgent application has been necessitated by widespread starvation in Gaza, which has claimed the lives of at least 15 children in the past week alone, with the actual numbers believed to be much higher,” the presidency said in a statement.

“United Nations experts warn that the number of deaths will increase exponentially unless military activities are halted and the blockade is lifted,” the statement continued, demanding that the court order an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

“The situation is urgent. South Africa has no choice but to approach the Court for the strengthening of the Provisional Measures in place to try [to] prevent full-scale famine in the Gaza Strip.”



No justification for arms sales to Israel: UN special rapporteur

Mary Lawlor, United Nations special rapporteur on human rights defenders, says no moral arguments exist that can justify the continued sale of weapons to Israel by states that respect the principle of the universality of human rights.

In an op-ed in The Irish Times, Lawlor says: “The international human rights architecture is creaking under the weight of the hypocrisy of states professing absolute support for a rules-based order yet continuing to facilitate this war by providing weapons to Israel to kill more innocent Palestinians.”

She calls the Israeli onslaught on Gaza “a war on women and children”, who account for 70 percent of the more than 30,000 Palestinians dead. She adds that human rights defenders have been explicitly targeted, including journalists, killed at work covering the conflict, while clearly visible in press vests and helmets. “This is also a war on journalists,” she says, and “a war against humanitarian personnel.”

US ‘quietly’ approved military sales to Israel since Oct 7: Report

The Washington Post reports that the United States has “quietly approved and delivered more than 100 separate foreign military sales to Israel since the Gaza war began on October 7, US officials told members of Congress in a recent classified briefing”.

All but a couple of weapons transfers were processed without public debate “because each fell under a specific dollar amount that requires the executive branch to individually notify Congress, according to US officials and lawmakers”, reported the newspaper.

Houthis claim attack on cargo ship True Confidence

The Yemeni group’s military spokesman Yahya Saree says in a televised speech that its fighters targeted the ship in the Gulf of Aden with missiles, causing a fire to break out onboard. “The targeting operation came after the ship’s crew rejected warning messages from the Yemeni naval forces,” Saree said.

We reported earlier that the Barbados-flagged and Greek-operated ship came under attack around 90km (56 miles) southwest of the Yemeni port city of Aden, becoming adrift.

Two dead in Houthi attack on US ship: Official

A senior US official says at least two people have been killed in the Houthi attack on the US cargo ship True Confidence in the Gulf of Aden, the Reuters news agency reports. The UK embassy in Yemen also confirmed the death toll, calling it a “sad and predictable” result of the Houthis’ attacks on international shipping.

Earlier, we reported the Yemeni group’s military spokesperson Yahya Sarea said its fighters targeted the ship with missiles, causing a fire to break out onboard. These are the first recorded casualties since November when the Houthis began attacking commercial vessels they say are linked to Israel.

US says Houthis will be held accountable for attack that killed two sailors

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters that the US will “continue” to hold the Yemeni group accountable for attacks on international shipping. Earlier, the US and UK said that a missile attack on a cargo ship, the True Confidence, around 90km (55 miles) southwest of the Yemeni port city of Aden, killed two. The attack was claimed by the Houthis in a televised speech by the group’s military spokesman Yahya Sarea.

Miller declined to specify to reporters whether this attack would trigger a new round of US air raids on Houthi positions in Yemen, which have been ongoing throughout 2024.


Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Israel trade cross-border fire

Israel has launched an air raid targeting the town of Yaroun, in southern Lebanon’s Nabatieh governorate, the Lebanese state news agency NNA has reported. The attack comes hours after Hezbollah claimed to have hit Metula, in northern Israel.

Two missiles that did not explode were launched on the Lebanese towns of Kafra and Yater, while the outskirts of al-Fardeis were hit by artillery shelling, NNA reported. Hezbollah earlier said its fighters targeted the Avivim settlement in northern Israel with “appropriate weapons”.