The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ordered Israel to increase its facilitation of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
“The catastrophic living conditions of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have deteriorated further, in particular in view of the prolonged and widespread deprivation of food and other basic necessities to which the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been subjected,” the court said in its provisional decision.
Much like its ruling in January, the ICJ accuses Israel again of “genocide” by purposefully causing humanitarian suffering to Gazans, who are “no longer at risk of famine but that famine is already setting in.“
The ruling came at the behest of South Africa, who called the motion “significant.”
Israel, for its part, is looking to expand aid delivery options and the amount of relief getting into Gaza despite Hamas’s efforts to sabotage.
“Israel will continue to promote new initiatives and expand existing ones in order to enable and facilitate the flow of aid to the Gaza Strip in a continuous and extensive manner, by land, air, and sea, together with UN bodies and other partners in the international community. This includes ongoing efforts to increase the scale and means of access for such aid despite the operational challenges on the ground and Hamas’ active and abhorrent efforts to commandeer, hoard, and steal aid,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lior Hayat said in a statement on Thursday.
