“A challenge to the decision of international justice.” The Palestinian presidency denounces the occupation’s massacres in Rafah

Yesterday evening, Sunday, the Palestinian Presidency condemned the air strikes committed by the Israeli occupation army in the city of Rafah, describing them as a “massacre that exceeded all limits” and a challenge to the decisions of international legitimacy, especially the decision of the International Court of Justice.

Palestinian presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said in a statement, “The Israeli occupation army’s deliberate targeting of the tents of the displaced in Rafah is a massacre that has exceeded all limits, and requires urgent intervention to immediately stop these crimes targeting the Palestinian people.”

The massacre took place in an area where Israel did not warn its residents and did not request that it be evacuated of displaced people. It came two days after the International Court of Justice decided to stop the Israeli military attack in Rafah “immediately.”

Abu Rudeina added, "The Israeli occupation forces committing this heinous massacre is a challenge to all resolutions of international legitimacy, most notably the clear and frank decision of the International Court of Justice that it is necessary to stop targeting Rafah and provide protection for the Palestinian people."

On Friday, the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled that Israel must withdraw from Rafah and stop its military activities there, at the request of South Africa, by a majority of 13 judges to two.

Abu Rudeina considered that “the American positions in support of the occupation financially and politically are the main reason for the heinous massacres we are witnessing today, during which the Israeli occupation authorities violated all taboos,” holding the American administration “responsible for these crimes that shame humanity.”

He stressed the need for the world to move “immediately to stop this comprehensive aggression against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including Jerusalem, and to oblige the Israeli occupation authorities to stop their crimes that have inflamed the region and threaten international stability.”

Abu Rudeina called on the American administration to “compel Israel to stop this madness and this genocide that it is carrying out, whether in Rafah, which we have repeatedly warned against invading, or in the cities of the Gaza Strip, and to close their crossings in order to cause a humanitarian famine in light of an acute shortage of food and medicine, or in... The West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is subjected to continuous aggression targeting the Palestinian citizen and Islamic and Christian sanctities.”

In turn, the Secretary-General of the National Initiative, Mustafa Barghouti, said in a statement that “Israel’s rulers and army are taking revenge for their military and political failure in Gaza by brutally oppressing defenseless civilians and committing a massacre against women and children in refugee camps that are supposed to be safe areas.”

Barghouti added, "The whole world is now required to force Israel to implement the decision of the International Court of Justice and impose sanctions on it."

For his part, the head of the Palestinian National Council (Parliament of the Liberation Organization), Rawhi Fattouh, said, “The massacre reflects Israel’s insistence on continuing genocide, destruction, and massacres in Rafah and the rest of the Gaza Strip, and bypassing all international demands and resolutions to stop the attack on the city.”

Fattouh added, in a statement, that “committing a massacre against displaced civilians exposes the falsehood of the bloody occupation’s claims of the existence of safe areas in Rafah.”

On Sunday, the Civil Defense in Gaza reported, through a statement, the transfer of 50 Palestinians “who were killed or wounded as a result of Israeli bombing” to a displaced persons camp in the Tal al-Sultan area, west of Rafah.

Meanwhile, the Emergency Committee in Rafah Governorate, south of the Gaza Strip, confirmed on Sunday evening that the “massacre” of the Israeli occupation army in the city undermines all of Tel Aviv’s claims about the existence of “safe areas.”

Since May 6, Israel has been launching a ground attack on Rafah, and the next day it seized the Palestinian side of the Rafah land crossing with Egypt, closing it to the exit of wounded people to receive treatment and the entry of already scarce humanitarian aid.

The attack forced at least 810,000 Palestinians to flee from Rafah, where there were about 1.5 million people, including about 1.4 million displaced from other areas in the Strip.

Israel continues the war despite orders from the International Court of Justice to stop the ground attack on Rafah, and to take immediate measures to prevent acts of “genocide” and improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Since last October 7, Israel has been waging a war on Gaza, which has left more than 116,000 Palestinians dead or wounded, most of them children and women, and about 10,000 missing amid massive destruction and famine that claimed the lives of children and the elderly.

Israel ignores the International Criminal Court’s intention to issue international arrest warrants against its Prime Minister and Defense Minister. For their responsibility for “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity” in Gaza.

For the 18th year, Israel has besieged the Gaza Strip, and its war forced about two million of its residents, numbering about 2.3 million Palestinians, to flee in catastrophic conditions, with severe scarcity of food, water, and medicine.