It was widely viewed as an unambiguous statement: The top United Nations court ordered Israel to immediately halt its military assault on Rafah — a dramatic intervention that left the nation and its chief ally, the U.S., increasingly isolated on the world stage.
European officials on Monday demanded Israel abide by the International Court of Justice ruling and suggested it was violating the order by pushing ahead with military action in Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians have sought refuge in dire conditions.
But Israeli officials have given no indication they intend to change course. And they have argued that there is in fact room for nuance in last week’s ruling, and thus room for Israel's military to continue its offensive in the southern Gaza city.
The ruling, which is legally binding but which the ICJ has no real powers to enforce, capped a bad week for Israel on the global stage. The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor sough an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other leaders, before Spain, Norway and Ireland announced they would recognize an independent Palestinian state.
Then, on Friday, the ICJ ruled that Israel’s ongoing offensive in Rafah posed an “immediate risk” to Palestinians.
It ordered that Israel “immediately halt its military offensive, and any other action in the Rafah governorate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”
This was viewed by some in Israel as an ambiguous choice of words that could be seen as demanding the country abide by international law in Rafah, but not necessarily halt its military operation there entirely.
“What they are asking us, is not to commit genocide in Rafah," Netanyahu’s national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, told Israel’s N12 TV on Saturday. "We did not commit genocide and we will not commit genocide."
Asked whether the offensive would continue, Hanegbi said: "According to international law, we have the right to defend ourselves and the evidence is that the court is not preventing us from continuing to defend ourselves."
An Israeli official told NBC News on Friday that Netanyahu was meeting with legal advisers to review the ruling.
Palestinians who have not fled Rafah face deadly airstrikes and a spiraling humanitarian crisis, but Israel has appeared to expand its ground operations in the city incrementally, rather than launching what might be perceived as a full-scale attack the U.S. has urged against.
Laura Blumenfeld, a Middle East analyst at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies in Washington, believes the ruling could actually help Israel keep happy the only friend that matters.
“Israel might be happier with 10 friends, but it only needs one to survive — Joe Biden,” she told NBC News. “Unexpectedly — and perhaps ironically — the ICJ ruling enabled Israel to move forward militarily without crossing Biden’s crucial red line. By stating that the incursion “may inflict” destruction on Palestinians, the text offered Israel’s war Cabinet the opportunity to argue that they will proceed with caution,” Blumenfeld added.
The Biden administration did not release a public statement after the ICJ ruling. In a briefing Wednesday, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Israel’s military operations appeared to have been “more targeted and limited.”
But that is at odds with the growing consensus of many U.S. allies.
Ahead of a meeting of European Union foreign ministers on Monday, the bloc's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said: "Unhappily, what we have seen in the immediate hours, is that Israel continues the military action that it has been asked to stop."
He cited the strike Sunday night, which local officials said killed dozens in a tent camp for displaced people in Rafah. Israel's military said it had targeted two senior Hamas leaders and took steps to avoid harming civilians and that a thorough investigation would be conducted into "the deaths of civilians in the area of the strike."
And following the attack, 19 humanitarian groups issued an urgent call for the U.N. Security Council "to take decisive action to ensure the ICJ’s orders are implemented," saying that a "failure to do so would further compromise the conditions to sustain human life in Gaza and would undermine global trust in the primacy of international law."
While Israel may be happy to proceed despite mounting international isolation, the ICJ ruling may ultimately pile pressure on the U.S., said Yossi Mekelberg, an associate fellow with the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House.
He said that the Biden administration was sending contradictory messages by continuing to support Israel overall but criticizing the way it conducts the war.
Israel's apparent rejection of Washington's latest efforts to broker an agreement with Saudi Arabia that would hinge on a cease-fire in Gaza were an example of this, he said.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken had tried to help save Israel from itself and urged the U.S. ally to "stop the war, get the hostages out, don’t get yourself into more trouble with the international community, get yourself out of isolation and us out of isolation, and there will be some silver lining to end the war when so many have lost their lives," Mekelberg said. "And he gets basically a “no” from Netanyahu."
Mekelberg added: "You would expect the U.S. to say, 'Well if you refuse there will be consequences for that,' but this is not the case. There are so many contradictions."
