The Israeli government told U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday that despite an International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling that it must stop military operations in Rafah, Gaza, it will continue to fight there against Hamas.
As Breitbart News reported, the ICJ issued its order earlier Friday in response to a complaint by South Africa. The order said Israel had to stop fighting in Rafah — though some observers suggested that the order only applied to places in which there was a significant risk of harm to the civilian Palestinian population. The Hamas terrorist group, which has its last significant battalions in Rafah, welcomed the ICJ ruling, which would let it survive, if implemented.
However, as Breitbart News reported Thursday, Israel had already said that it would not obey an ICJ ruling against the operation in Rafah. War cabinet member and opposition figure Benny Gantz reiterated that to Secretary Blinken in a phone call on Friday, and in a subsequent statement released to the media, as reported by the Times of Israel:
Israel must “continue fighting,” Gantz says in a subsequent statement.
“The State of Israel embarked on a just and necessary campaign after a brutal terrorist organization massacred our citizens, raped our women, kidnapped our children and fired missiles at our city centers,” he says, insisting that the Jewish state is “obligated to continue fighting to return its hostages and ensure the safety of its citizens, at any time and place — including in Rafah.”
The President of the ICJ, Nawaf Salam, is from Lebanon and had previously made extreme anti-Israel statements.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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