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Rubio due in Israel as US tries to shore up Gaza ceasefire

Chief US diplomat Marco Rubio was due in Israel on Thursday, the latest Washington official to visit as President Donald Trump’s administration kept up efforts to cement the fragile truce between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.On Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance warned during his own visit that the United States and its allies faced a tough task disarming Hamas and building a peaceful future for the Gaza Strip.Vance met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the second day of a trip to Israel, part of a diplomatic blitz in support of the US-brokered plan to end the fighting, recover hostages and, eventually, rebuild the devastated Palestinian territory.”We have a very, very tough task ahead of us, which is to disarm Hamas but rebuild Gaza, to make life better for the people of Gaza, but also to ensure that Hamas is no longer a threat to our friends in Israel,” Vance said.Secretary of State Rubio was due in Israel on Thursday and would meet Netanyahu on Friday, an Israeli government spokeswoman said. Vance had kicked off the three-day visit on Tuesday by opening the Civil-Military Coordination Centre (CMCC) in southwest Israel, where US and allied troops will work with Israeli forces to monitor the truce and oversee aid to Gaza. – Turkish troops? -“A lot of our Israeli friends are working together with a lot of Americans to actually mediate this entire ceasefire process, to get some of the critical infrastructure off the ground,” Vance said, after talks with Netanyahu in Jerusalem.Vance pointed to the “international security force” as one of the bodies that would have to be set up. Under US President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan, this military mission would keep the peace in Gaza as Israel withdraws.Several US allies from the Arab and Muslim world are considering joining the force, but no US troops would be on the ground inside Gaza.Reports that Israel’s outspoken critic and regional rival Turkey could provide troops have rattled Israeli opinion.Netanyahu said decisions on the new security force would be made in discussion with the United States. But on the potential for any role for Turkey role he said: “I have very strong opinions about that. You want to guess what they are?” – ‘Great optimism’ -The Israeli premier, who has been criticised by some domestic opponents for accepting the US-backed ceasefire before Hamas was fully destroyed, defended the deal.  “We’ve been able to do two things. Put the knife up to Hamas’s throat. That was the military effort guided by Israel,” Netanyahu said.”And the other effort was to isolate Hamas and the Arab and Muslim world, which I think the president (Trump) did brilliantly with his team. So those two things produced the hostages,” he said.As Vance met the Israelis, the International Court of Justice in The Hague issued an “advisory opinion” reminding Israel of its responsibility to provide Palestinians with the basic needs essential to survival and to permit UN agencies to operate in Gaza.Israel rejected the ruling, and foreign ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein branded it “yet another political attempt to impose political measures against Israel under the guise of ‘International Law’.” Hamas has continued to hand over the remains of deceased hostages in small numbers as part of the ceasefire deal, and Palestinians have welcomed the truce, their cities lying in ruins.In the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday, the Israeli military dropped leaflets asking residents of Khan Yunis to leave the area to avoid crossing the “yellow line”, to which Israeli troops have withdrawn, an AFP journalist reported.”I’m tired of being moved, very tired. I prefer to die, like my son, who fell as a martyr. He is more worthy of dying,” said Riad Anza, one of the displaced Palestinians.- Hostage remains -The Israeli military said Wednesday the remains of two more hostages returned the day before had been identified as elderly kibbutz resident Aryeh Zalmanovich and army NCO Tamir Adar.The militants have now released 15 of the 28 hostage bodies pledged to be returned under the deal, but Hamas has said the search is being hampered by the level of destruction in the territory.For each deceased Israeli hostage released, Israel returns 15 dead Palestinians. On Wednesday, it sent back 30 more, bringing the total since the ceasefire to 195, the Gaza health ministry said. The war, triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, has killed at least 68,234 people in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, figures the UN considers credible.Hamas’s 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

UN court says Israel must ease aid into Gaza, provide ‘basic needs’

The International Court of Justice said Wednesday that Israel was obliged to ease the passage of aid into Gaza, stressing it had to provide Palestinians with the “basic needs” to survive.The wide-ranging ICJ ruling, quickly rejected by Israel, came as aid groups scrambled to scale up much-needed humanitarian assistance into Gaza, seizing upon a fragile ceasefire agreed earlier this month.While the UN’s top court’s “Advisory Opinion” is not legally binding, the ICJ believes it carries “great legal weight and moral authority”.”This is a very important decision. And I hope that Israel will abide by it,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday.ICJ President Yuji Iwasawa said Israel was “under an obligation to agree to and facilitate relief schemes provided by the United Nations and its entities”.That included UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, which Israel has banned after accusing some of its staff of taking part in the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack that sparked the war in Gaza.The ICJ ruled that Israel had not substantiated the allegations.Israel did not take part in the proceedings and hit back at the findings.  “Israel categorically rejects the ICJ’s ‘advisory opinion,’ which was entirely predictable from the outset regarding UNRWA,” foreign ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein posted on X.”This is yet another political attempt to impose political measures against Israel under the guise of ‘International Law.'”Iwasawa said the ICJ “rejects the argument that the request abuses and weaponises the international judicial process”.Another Israeli official added that Israel “cooperates with international organisations, with other UN agencies regarding Gaza. But Israel will not cooperate with UNRWA”.Within hours of the ruling, Norway said it would propose a UN General Assembly resolution demanding that Israel lift restrictions on Gaza aid. And the Palestinian delegate to the ICJ, Ammar Hijazi, urged nations to ensure Israel complies with the court to let aid into Gaza.”The responsibility is on the international community to uphold these values and oblige Israel, bring Israel into compliance,” he told reporters.Before the ruling, Abeer Etefa, Middle East spokeswoman for the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), said 530 WFP trucks had crossed into Gaza since the ceasefire started on October 10.The trucks had delivered more than 6,700 tonnes of food, which she said was “enough for close to half a million people for two weeks”.Etefa said around 750 tonnes a day were now coming through, well below the WFP’s target of around 2,000 tonnes daily.The ICJ said that Israel, as an occupying power, was under an obligation “to ensure the basic needs of the local population, including the supplies essential for their survival”.At the same time, Israel was “also under a negative obligation not to impede the provision of these supplies”, the court said.The court also recalled the obligation under international law not to use starvation as a method of warfare.- ‘Serious concerns’ -The UN had asked the ICJ to clarify Israel’s obligations, as an occupying power, towards UN and other bodies “including to ensure and facilitate the unhindered provision of urgently needed supplies essential to the survival” of Palestinians.ICJ judges heard a week of evidence in April from dozens of nations and organisations, much of which revolved around the status of UNRWA.At the hearings, a US official raised “serious concerns” about UNRWA’s impartiality, and alleged that Hamas used the agency’s facilities.The US official, Josh Simmons, said Israel had “no obligation to permit UNRWA specifically to provide humanitarian assistance”.Simmons added that UNRWA was not the only option for delivering aid into Gaza.However, the ICJ noted that UNRWA “cannot be replaced on short notice without a proper transition plan”.Hijazi told the April hearings that Israel was blocking aid as a “weapon of war”, sparking starvation in Gaza.The case was separate from the others Israel faces under international law over its Gaza campaign. In July 2024, the ICJ issued another advisory opinion stating that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories was “unlawful” and must end as soon as possible.ICJ judges are also weighing accusations, brought by South Africa, that Israel has broken the 1948 UN Genocide Convention with its actions in Gaza.Another court in The Hague, the International Criminal Court, has issued arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. It also issued a warrant for Hamas commander Mohammed Deif, who Israel says was killed in an airstrike.

Gaza truce plan insufficient against ‘genocide’: UN’s Albanese

UN rights expert Francesca Albanese on Wednesday criticised a US-brokered ceasefire plan in Gaza as insufficient to address what she called a “genocide” of the Palestinian people by the United States and Israel.A fragile truce is in place as part of a deal to end two years of the Israel-Hamas war, which also involves the recovery of hostages, delivery of more aid to Gaza and eventual rebuilding of the devastated Palestinian territory.The plan is “absolutely inadequate and it doesn’t comply with international law”, said Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories.There needed to be commitment to “ending the occupation, ending exploitation of Palestinian resources, ending colonisation”, Albanese told reporters.Israeli troops currently control around half of the coastal Palestinian territory. “It’s not a war, it’s a genocide where there is a determination to destroy a people as such,” said Albanese, who is mandated by the United Nations but does not speak on its behalf.UN investigators and several human rights groups, among them Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, accuse Israel of committing genocide in Gaza,Israel has denied that charge as “distorted and false”, while accusing the authors of antisemitism.- ‘Genocidal apartheid state’ -Albanese was in South Africa — which has laid a case of genocide against Israel at the International Court of Justice — to deliver the annual Nelson Mandela Lecture on October 25. Under US sanctions since July for her outspoken criticism of Israel, she will also present her next report to the United Nations from South Africa in the coming days.In a first version of that report, published on the UN website, Albanese calls the Western support for Israel during the war with Hamas “the culmination of a long history of complicity”.”Even as the genocidal violence became visible, states, mostly Western ones, have provided, and continue to provide, Israel with military, diplomatic, economic and ideological support,” Albanese wrote.For helping Israel, which she brands a “genocidal apartheid state”, the UN rapporteur argues allied countries “could and should be held liable for aiding, assisting or jointly participating in internationally wrongful acts”.”The United States and Israel are leading not just the genocide in Gaza,” Albanese told Wednesday’s press conference. “They are leading to the erosion, the collapse of the multilateral system, threatening everyone who tries to advance justice and accountability,” she charged, mentioning four ICC judges also under US sanctions.Renewed discussions over the past months about a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict have “been a pretence of doing something while the emergency was to discuss … how we stop the genocide”, she said.Those “who still have ties with Israel, diplomatic, but especially economic, political and military ties, are all responsible in some measure”, she said.