The International Court of Justice calls for a halt to the military offensive in Rafah, ruling in favor of South Africa’s request. For the Jewish state, the absolute priority is the return of the hostages: out of over 240 captured on 7 October, according to intelligence, thirty are alive
After the request for the arrest of Benjamin Netanyahu by the prosecutor of the Criminal Court in The Hague, The International Court of Justice in The Hague ordered Israel to stop the military offensive in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, ruling in favor of the request from South Africa, which accused Israel of “genocide.” The result of the vote was 13 to 2. The two votes against were Julia Sebutinde, Uganda’s representative to the Court, and Aharon Barak, former president of the Israeli High Court and appointed by Jerusalem to the Court of Justice Committee .
Three other judges argue that the operative clause of the court’s decision does not limit Israel immediately, but only if the Rafah operation contravenes the Geneva Convention. Meanwhile, Israel continues to find hostage bodies in Rafah. Last week the bodies of three civilians were found, including that of Shani Louk, the symbol girl of October 7th. The Israeli army today recovered the bodies of three more hostages, including the body of Shani’s boyfriend, Orión Hernández Radoux, and those of Hanan Yablonka and Michel Nisenbaum. They were at the Supernova festival when it was attacked by Hamas terrorists.
Israel’s war cabinet has meanwhile approved the resumption of indirect talks with Hamas for the release of the hostages after weeks of stalemate. The absolute priority is the return of the hostages captured by Hamas. Over 240 hostages were taken on October 7. Officially there are 124 abductees still in Gaza. But with each passing day, Israel finds more and more only dead hostages and the chances of finding living ones diminish. And the number of dead or alive is fundamental to the ceasefire proposals, which include an exchange with Palestinian terrorists detained in Israel. There are only thirty hostages alive, according to Israeli intelligence. Hamas does not provide information on how many are alive, because it knows that leaving the Israelis in the dark about the fate of the abductees puts them in a position where they do not know what they are negotiating for.
Louk’s body was found in the Jabaliya camp. The well from which the bodies were pulled appeared normal. Concrete, ladder and ten meter gorge. Except that the building where the well is located was built by UNRWA, the UN agency for the Palestinians. And with European funding, as the sign on the door reveals: “With the generous support of the Federal Republic of Germany”. Hamas has a macabre sense of irony: Shani Louk, whose body was stored under that building, was also a German citizen.
