As one Hague venue is weighing a request to arrest Israeli leaders, another is set to order Israel, as early as tomorrow, to halt its Gaza war, or at least parts of it. 

The judicial arm of the United Nations, known as the International Court of Justice, on Friday will issue a ruling on South Africa’s request to end Israel Defense Force operations in Gaza. Israeli officials are reportedly concerned that the ICJ will at least partially accept Pretoria’s emergency request by ordering the IDF to cease its Rafah operation. 

The ICJ’s decision is scheduled to be read by the court’s sitting president, Nawaf Salaam, who previously served as the ambassador to the UN of Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon. Last months, as the IDF launched an operation at Rafah, South Africa returned to the Hague, a followup to its December call to declare Israel in violation of its obligations under the genocide convention. 

Arguing in front of the court, a former Israeli supreme court justice, Aharon Barak, said the ICJ has no authority to interfere in Israel’s military operations while Hamas has free hands to attack at will. The court might take years before it decides on the allegation that Israel is guilty of genocide. 

Yet, as long as the ICJ hasn’t established that Israel is committing genocide, it has no authority to order the IDF to halt the war, a former legal adviser to the Israeli foreign ministry, Alan Baker, tells the Sun. Yet, he adds, “this is the UN, where politics carry the day, so it is possible the judges will issue an order, and that is why Israeli officials are concerned.” 

The ICJ has no enforcement mechanism, and its orders are often ignored. In March 2022, it ruled that “Russia must suspend the military operations launched in Ukraine on 24 February immediately.” The Kremlin, instead, escalated the war. Yet, if the court rules on Gaza Friday, Moscow is likely to change its tune. 

Israeli officials fear that if the court issues an order to either halt operations at Rafah or for the IDF to leave Gaza altogether, the matter would soon move to the UN Security Council. That body could demand Israel follow the order, and ultimately even impose international sanction on Israel if it disobeys. 

America can veto any Security Council resolution, and would be likely to block such measures. Yet, UN envoys might believe that President Biden, who has warned Jerusalem repeatedly against operating at Rafah, could find it politically difficult to veto a council order to halt IDF activities there. 

Washington officials have long argued that Israel had no credible plan to evacuate 1.2 million civilians who had escaped to Rafah from northern Gaza early in the war. Yet, since the May 6 launch of the Rafah operation, more than 900,000 Gazans have moved out of the combat area. Most of them arrived at an Israeli-built tent city in the nearby Muwasi area.  

On Thursday Egypt announced that it would keep the Rafah crossing shut on its side of the border with Gaza as long as Israel controls the Gaza side. That, according to UN officials, complicates the distribution of food and other necessities. UN officials say they are urging Egypt and Israel to facilitate the reopening of the crossing. 

Yet, in many quarters blame is ascribed to Israel alone. Denial of aid is the most serious crime alleged by the prosecutor of the Hague-based International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, who last week called to arrest Prime Minister Netnayhu and the defense minister, Yoav Gallant. Israel, he said, is using “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare,” which is a war crime. 

Yet, in a study conducted by Hebrew University food scientists, 124 trucks carrying food and humanitarian aid have entered Gaza daily on average between January and April. As first cited by the Free Press’s Eli Lake, the study calculates that the truckloads add up to 3,211 daily calories worth of nutrition per each Gazan. The World Health Organization’s standard for daily calorie consumption for an average man is 2,900, and 2,200 for a woman. 

“The fact that things are delivered at the crossings does not mean that we have the ability and the capacity” to distribute the aid to needy Gazans, the UN spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, told the Sun. Asked if it, nevertheless, negates the allegation that Israel is deliberately starving civilians as a weapon, Mr. Dujarric said he did not want to get into questions deliberated in a court. 

UN accusations against Israel are widely echoed in the press and by governments, including Washington occasionally. They are stoking a lawfare frenzy at Hague. The ICJ, arguably, has no legal authority to order war cessation, while the ICC has no jurisdiction over non-member Israel — yet both are now eager to convict.