Two days after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to immediately stop its assault on Rafah, Israeli warplanes began to drop bombs on refugee tent camps in what had previously been declared a “safe zone.” At least 45 people, including children and infants, were killed in the bombing. We discuss the ruling and the massacre in Rafah with Ahmed Abofoul, a legal researcher and advocacy officer at the Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq who was born and raised in Gaza. Abofoul is now based in The Hague, where the International Court of Justice recently ordered Israel to halt its assault on Rafah in a genocide case brought by South Africa. Abofoul notes the significance of the World Court ruling but decries Israel’s complete disregard for international orders, including previous ICJ rulings this year. “Israel is lying,” while its allies are “parroting whatever Israel is saying.” Without a direct enforcement mechanism, attempts to rein in Israeli attacks are likely to continue to fail. Will “complicit” Western states “continue business as usual, or will we see sanctions on Israel?” Abofoul asks. “Everything I know in Gaza has been destroyed,” he adds. “This is a genocide. This is about the erasure of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and as a whole, and this is the essence of Zionism as a settler-colonial ideology.”
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.