Israel unlikely to convince world court it is complying with Gaza ruling: Legal expert

By Irmak Akcan

Israel is unlikely to convince the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that it is complying with the court’s interim ruling that it take all measures to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza, a legal expert told Anadolu.

Prof. Susan Akram, a clinical professor of law and director of the international human rights law clinic at Boston University School of Law, said Israel even increased violence against Palestinians after the ruling, which requires it to comply with the 1948 Genocide Convention, killing another 3,523 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as the overall death toll hit 30,000.

"All available evidence shows that Israel does not comply with the decisions of the ICJ and that the number of Palestinian civilians killed and injured in Gaza has increased," Akram said.

"Israel is deliberately targeting the population stranded in Gaza. It is depriving the increasingly desperate and starving Gazans of basic necessities such food, water, fuel, medicine, shelter and other vital needs," she added.

Akram noted that Israel carried out intense attacks against the entire Gaza Strip, including humanitarian aid facilities, largely destroying residences, hospitals, schools and universities.

She said tens of thousands of people were injured and a similar number lost their lives in the attacks, but the actual number of casualties was not known because not all of the people under the rubble could be found and the number of deaths could not be determined accurately.

Citing a statement from the international humanitarian aid organization Oxfam that Israel kills an average of 250 Palestinians a day, which is more than all conflicts in the 21st century, Akram emphasized that all the evidence gathered by the international community reveals that Israel does not comply with the provisions of the ICJ.

"Given this evidence, it is difficult to imagine how Israel can claim to have complied even minimally with the ICJ's rulings," she said.

Asked whether Israel used these actions as a war tactic, Akram said "leaving two million people without water, food, fuel and medicine is undoubtedly part of Israel's policy to kill the maximum number of Palestinians in Gaza."

She said Israeli government officials and the army also made statements to support this.

Emphasizing the importance of boycotts in many parts of the world against Israel in effecting change, Akram said similar studies were carried out during the apartheid regime of South Africa which found that such efforts were very effective in ending apartheid.

Akram said boycotts against Israel have been continuing for years and that boycotting is "one of the necessary strategies to put pressure on Israel and its suppliers of weapons and other resources in order to stop the war in Gaza."

- Measures ruled against Israel at ICJ

South Africa filed a case against Israel at the ICJ on Dec. 29, alleging that it violated the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948.

It asked the world court to issue provisional measures due to the urgency of the situation in Gaza, with hearings on the request held on Jan. 11-12 at the Peace Palace in The Hague.

The ICJ ordered Israel to take all necessary measures to prevent acts defined in Article 2 of the Genocide Convention, to prevent, hinder and punish those calling for genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, to eliminate adverse living conditions by providing essential services and humanitarian aid and to take effective measures to prevent the destruction of evidence showing the violation of the Genocide Convention against Palestinians.

The ICJ also ordered Israel to submit a report on all the measures it had taken within one month from the date of the decision.

Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas in which 1,163 people were killed.

More than 31,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have since been killed in Gaza and over 73,000 injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.

The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid a crippling blockade of most food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

*Writing by Emre Basaran