Residents said Israeli armour had thrust as far as the market at the heart of Jabalia, the largest of Gaza’s eight historic refugee camps, and that bulldozers were demolishing homes and shops in the path of the advance.
“Tanks and planes are wiping out residential districts and markets, shops, restaurants, everything. It is all happening before the one-eyed world,” Ayman Rajab, a resident of western Jabalia, said via a chat app.
Israel had said its forces cleared Jabalia months earlier in the Gaza war, triggered by the deadly Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on Oct. 7, but said last week it was returning to prevent Islamist militants re-grouping there.
In southern Gaza bordering Egypt, thick smoke rose over Rafah, where an escalating Israeli assault has sent hundreds of thousands of people fleeing from what was one of the few remaining places of refuge.
ICJ arguments: South Africa calls for complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza
South Africa has concluded its case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, and has detailed the provisional measures it requests from the court.
Their ambassador requested the court orders Israel to immediately cease its military operations in the Gaza Strip and withdraw from the Rafah crossing; immediately take all effective measures to ensure the access to Gaza of officials engaged in the provision of humanitarian aid and assistance to the population of Gaza and journalists and reporters to collect evidence and record conditions on the ground; and submit an open report to the court on all measures taken to ensure these measures are met within one week, Al Jazeera reported.
"Israel is acting with complete impunity in Gaza ... There is a danger which stems from a form of amnesia and denial by former colonial powers in relation to the crimes associated with colonial violence perpetrated against indigenous people. This includes the denial of genocide. This denial is clearly at play in Palestine. Israel is a settler colonial apartheid regime and the current government is now being accused of engaging in genocide," the South African speaker said before presenting his country’s demands.
Barrister Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh KC has said in the World Court that "In light of Israel's abject failure to even meet the lower threshold of enabling aid (in Gaza)… following seizures of the Rafah crossings the court should at least modify it provisional measures in order to leave no doubt as to what is required Israel."
"Israel must be ordered to immediately take all effective measures to ensure the access of persons able to investigate ongoing atrocities," she continued, referring to Israel's lack of evidence regarding the mass graves discovered near hospitals in the Strip.
"The court has the power to modify or make an explicit order for Israel to cease its military operations in Rafah and in Gaza more broadly, and to withdraw from the Gaza Strip. The court is indeed compelled, given the prevailing catastrophic situation in Gaza, to order an express end to Israel's military activities."
