(Web Desk) - The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has said it will announce on Friday whether it will order emergency measures against Israel after South Africa filed a case accusing Israel of genocide in its assault on Gaza.
The United Nations’ top court said in a statement on Wednesday that the 17-judge panel will announce its response to South Africa’s requests in court on January 26 at 12:00 GMT.
South Africa’s Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor will travel to The Hague to be present at the court as it delivers its announcement, a government spokesperson said, according to Reuters.
The ICJ will not deal with the main question of whether Israel is committing genocide on Friday, but will look at possible emergency measures requested by South Africa to restrain Israel’s actions.
Earlier this month, in two days of hearings, South Africa asked the ICJ, also known as the World Court, to order an emergency suspension of Israel’s devastating military campaign in the Palestinian enclave.
It argued that provisional measures are necessary “to protect against further, severe and irreparable harm to the rights of the Palestinian people under the Genocide Convention, which continue to be violated with impunity”.
South Africa filed nine injunctions to the court. Among them are the demand for an order that would direct Israel to suspend all military operations in Gaza, as well as a separate one that would direct Israel to facilitate and not impede the delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
“How the court addresses these two requests, if it decides to indicate provisional measures at all, is what to really look out for on Friday,” Michael Becker, a former legal officer at the ICJ, told Al Jazeera.
The court is not bound to order exactly the actions South Africa requested but can formulate the provisional measures it deems most appropriate.
Such measures are intended to prevent a dispute from getting worse while the court looks at the full case, which could take several years.
The ICJ’s deliberations are a painstaking process, involving detailed written submissions followed by oral arguments and counter-arguments by the team of top legal counsels representing each state. Experts say a ruling in the case could take three to four years.