Stark Warning ICJ Ruling Is Third Blow In A Week For Israel As Isolation Grows

The provisional measures issued by the international court of justice (ICJ) ordering an immediate halt to Israel's military operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah represent the starkest warning yet to Israel that its offensive risks creating conditions that could be framed as potentially genocidal.

- Peter Beaumont

The ruling, agreed by a majority of 13-2 judges, almost exclusively cited UN agencies and senior officials - including the UN's secretary general - to paint a picture of the disastrous situation facing Palestinians in Gaza, half of whom are children.

Israeli officials had vowed to defy any new order, but the ICJ measures - the country's third major setback on the global stage within a week underline the stark and deepening risk for Israel and its leaders.

After the application to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for arrest warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, as well as Hamas leaders, and Spain, Norway and Ireland's announcement they would unilaterally recognise a Palestine state, last Friday's court order shows Israel's growing isolation.

While the US has said it would push back against the ICC warrants, the ICJ ruling undermines efforts to present the court cases against Israel as somehow being in bad faith, instead affirming that the world's two top international courts agree that allegations Israel is committing the most serious of war crimes are indeed plausible.