Israel bombed the Gaza Strip, including Rafah, on Saturday, despite an order from the UN's top court for it to "immediately halt"
In a case brought by South Africa alleging the Israeli military operation amounts to “genocide”, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to halt its Rafah offensive and demanded the immediate release of hostages still held by Palestinian militants. Hamas, the Iran-backed Islamist group that has ruled Gaza since 2007, welcomed the ICJ ruling on Rafah but criticised its decision to exclude the rest of the Palestinian territory from the order.In spite of the ICJ ruling, Israel carried out strikes on the Gaza Strip on Saturday morning as fighting raged between the army and Hamas’s armed wing.
In its ruling, the ICJ said Israel must “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”. The Israeli military said on Friday the bodies of three hostages — the Israeli Chanan Yablonka, Brazilian-Israeli Michel Nisenbaum and French-Mexican Orion Hernandez Radoux — were recovered in Gaza’s north.
The French presidency said they held talks on the Gaza war and ways to set up a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Gov. Uba Sani, of Kaduna State on Friday said the establishment of Metropolitan Authorities in the state was not intended to