RAMALLAH, Thursday, May 16, 2024 (WAFA) – The State of Palestine has welcomed the proceedings at the International Court of Justice on South Africa’s request for additional provisional measures to protect the Palestinian people from the ongoing genocide.

The Palestinian Presidency said today that these hearings are held because Israel has shown abject disregard for international law and the Court’s orders. 

“Instead of stopping the genocide and complying with the ICJ orders, Israel has undertaken deliberate measures to scale it up, including sealing the borders and invading Rafah and stopping life-saving aid, including food, water, fuel, and medicine,” said the Palestinian Foreign Ministry in a press statement. “This grotesque perversion of international law is a danger to humanity and the standing of the international system, not just the Palestinian people’s existence.”

The Foreign Ministry said “the highest court of the world has convened to deliberate the most brutal chapter of the Palestinian people’s ongoing Nakba. It commenced 76 years ago but the Nakba continues to impose dispossession, colonization, apartheid, forced displacement, ethnic cleansing, and now genocide on the Palestinian people. The Court has the historic responsibility to defend the principles and values embodied in the genocide convention against the impunity of one rogue state and the complicity of many others.”

The statement continued, “The Republic of South Africa has taken the moral, legal, and political lead to defend humanity, the law, and Palestine. For that, the Palestinian people and humanity owe them eternal gratitude.”

“Palestine will continue to work closely with South Africa and other allies on this and other legal and diplomatic efforts to stop the genocide, achieve accountability, and realize Palestine’s long-overdue freedom.”

M.N