A ruling Friday by the International Court of Justice on genocide charges against Israel had deep historical resonance for both Israelis and Palestinians. But it had no immediate practical consequences.
The World Court has not ordered an end to fighting in the Gaza Strip and has not sought to rule on the merits of South Africa’s case, a process that will take months – if not years – to complete.
But the court ordered Israel to comply with the Genocide Convention, send more aid to Gaza and inform the court of its efforts to do so — interim measures that looked like a rebuke to many Israelis and a moral victory to many Palestinians.
For many Israelis, the fact that a state founded in the wake of the Holocaust had been accused of genocide was “a hellish symbol,” said Alon Pinkas, an Israeli political commentator and former ambassador, after the court’s ruling in The Hague.
“That we even refer in the same sentence to the concept of genocide — not even an atrocity, not disproportionate force, not a war crime, but genocide — is extremely uncomfortable,” he added.
For many Palestinians, the court’s intervention offered a brief sense of validation for their cause. Israel is rarely held accountable for its actions, Palestinians and their supporters say, and the decision was a welcome exception amid one of the deadliest wars this century.
“The carnage continues, the carnage continues, the total destruction continues,” said Hanan Asrawi, a former Palestinian official. But the court’s decision reflects “a serious transformation in the way Israel is perceived and treated globally,” he said.
“Israel is being held accountable for the first time — and by the highest court, and by a near-unanimous decision,” he added.
For the people of Gaza, the intervention will bring little immediate relief.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 25,000 Gazans, according to Gazan officials, and damaged most of the buildings in the area, according to the United Nations. More than four out of five residents there have been displaced from their homes, the health system has collapsed and the UN has repeatedly warned of an impending famine.
In ordering compliance with the Genocide Convention, the court urged Israel to follow an international law written in 1948 that prohibits signatory states from killing members of a national, ethnic or religious group with the intent to destroy, even in part , the specific group. .
To many Israelis, the decision seemed like the latest example of bias against Israel in an international forum. They say the world holds Israel to a higher standard than most other countries. And for the Israeli mainstream, the war is one of necessity and survival – forced on Israel by the October 7 attack by Hamas, which killed some 1,200 people and led to the kidnapping of 240 others in Gaza, according to Israeli estimates.
Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister whose inflammatory statements about the war were cited by the court in the preamble to its ruling, called the court’s ruling anti-Semitic.
“The State of Israel does not need to lecture on morality to distinguish between terrorists and the civilian population in Gaza,” Mr Gallant said.
“Those who seek justice will not find it in the leather chairs of the courts in The Hague,” he added.
But the court’s directives may give impetus and political cover to Israeli officials who are pushing domestically to tone down the military’s actions in Gaza and mitigate the humanitarian devastation in the territory, according to Janina Dill, an international law expert at the University of Oxford. .
“Any dissenting voices in the Israeli government and the Israeli military who disagree with the way the war has been fought so far now have a really strong strategic argument to call for a change of course,” Professor Deal said.
For Professor Dill, the case also prompted reflection “on the human condition”, given how Israel was founded in part to prevent genocide against the Jewish people.
“Keeping human beings from turning against each other is a constant struggle, and no group in the world is incapable of this,” he added.
It was an issue that seemed to preoccupy the only Israeli judge, Aharon Barak, among the 17 assessing the case at the World Court.
As a child, Mr Barak, 87, survived the Holocaust after escaping a Jewish ghetto in Lithuania hidden in a sack.
“The genocide is a shadow in the history of the Jewish people and is intertwined with my own personal experience,” Mr. Barak wrote. “The idea that Israel is now being accused of committing genocide is very hard on me personally, as a genocide survivor who knows deeply about Israel’s commitment to the rule of law as a Jewish and democratic state.”
Against this complicated backdrop, Mr. Barak chose to vote against several of the measures passed by the court. But he joined his colleagues in calling on Israel to allow more aid to Gaza and punish people who incite genocide – surprising observers who expected him to go along on every point with Israel.
While many Israelis expressed dismay at the ruling, some found relief that the court did not order Israel to halt its military operation.
According to Mr. Barak, this course would have left Israel “vulnerable in the face of a brutal attack, unable to fulfill its most basic duties towards its citizens.”
“It would amount to tying both of Israel’s hands, depriving it of the ability to fight even in accordance with international law,” he wrote.
But for some Palestinians, particularly those in Gaza, that very decision amounted to betrayal. Many hoped the court would call on Israel to stop the war altogether – a move that would be nearly impossible to implement but would represent a victory in the battle for public opinion.
“He talks like genocide and walks like genocide,” Muhammad Shehada, a rights activist from Gaza. He wrote on social media. “We don’t have to stop the genocidal war though! All good?”
Six hours after the court’s decision, Gaza’s health ministry released the latest figures on casualties from the war. An additional 200 Gazans have been killed in the past 24 hours, the ministry announced Friday night.
Rawan Sheikh Ahmad contributed reports from Haifa, Israel and Jonathan Rice from Tel Aviv.
