The top United Nations court on Friday ordered Israel to halt its military operations in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
Israel, however, insists it has the right to defend itself from Palestinian resistance group Hamas and is unlikely to comply with the ruling.
The order by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) further ratchets up international pressure on an increasingly isolated Israel to rein in its war on Hamas in Gaza.
Friday’s decision marked the third time this year the 15-judge panel has issued preliminary orders seeking to rein in the death toll and alleviate humanitarian suffering in Gaza. While orders are legally binding, the court has no police to enforce them.
Criticism of Israel's conduct in the war in Gaza has been growing – even from its closest ally, the United States, which warned against an invasion of the southern city of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have sought shelter from fighting elsewhere.
And this week alone, three European countries announced they would recognize a Palestinian state, and the chief prosecutor for another U.N. court requested arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, along with Hamas officials.
While the International Court of Justice has broad powers to order an end to the Israeli military campaign and any such ruling would be a blow to Israel's international standing, it does not have a police force to enforce its orders.
Israel signaled it, too, would brush off an ICJ order to stop its operations. "No power on earth will stop Israel from protecting its citizens and going after Hamas in Gaza," Avi Hyman, the government spokesperson, said in a press briefing Thursday.
The court’s president, Nawaf Salam, opened Friday’s hearing, as a small group of pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrated outside.
The cease-fire request is part of a case filed late last year by South Africa accusing Israel of committing genocide during its Gaza campaign. Israel vehemently denies the allegations. The case will take years to resolve, but South Africa wants interim orders to protect Palestinians while the legal wrangling continues.
At public hearings last week at the International Court of Justice, South Africa's ambassador to the Netherlands, Vusimuzi Madonsela, urged the panel of 15 international judges to order Israel to "totally and unconditionally withdraw” from the Gaza Strip.
The court has already found that Israel's military operations pose a "real and imminent risk” to the Palestinian people in Gaza.
Israel’s offensive has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The operation has obliterated entire neighborhoods, sent hundreds of thousands of people fleeing their homes, and pushed parts of the territory into famine.
