Palestinian Resistance responds to Int’l Court of Justice decision on Israeli genocide

The following statements from Palestinian resistance groups were posted on Resistance News Network on Jan. 26, 2024, in response to the preliminary decision issued by the International Court of Justice in response to the South African government’s 84-page document accusing the apartheid state of Israel with genocide against the people of Gaza.

Islamic Resistance Movement – Hamas 

On the decision of the International Court of Justice: The Islamic Resistance Movement – Hamas welcomes the decision of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, which indicted the occupying state on charges of genocide, and demands that the occupation army protect civilians, lift the siege imposed on our people in the Gaza Strip, and respect its duties as an occupying force within the framework of international law and international humanitarian law. 

This decision means the cessation of all forms of aggression against our Palestinian people in Gaza. We call on the international community to oblige the enemy to implement the court’s decisions and stop the ongoing “crime of genocide” against our people. 

We look forward to the court’s final decisions convicting the occupying state of committing the crime of “genocide,” war crimes, and crimes against humanity. This decision opens the way for enemy leaders to be held accountable for these crimes before the International Criminal Court, affirming the rights of our Palestinian people to self-determination, establishing their independent state, and returning to their lands and homes from which they were forcefully displaced, in line with international resolutions on this matter. 

We in the Hamas movement appreciate the genuine position of the Republic of South Africa, its support for our Palestinian people and the justice of their cause, its sincere endeavor to repel the aggression against the Gaza Strip, and its rejection of the brutal crimes of the occupation. We also extend our thanks to all countries that have expressed their support for this noble humanitarian action. 

Palestinian Mujahideen Movement Media Office

In light of the efforts made by the South African government to file a genocide lawsuit against the Zionist entity in the International Court of Justice, and considering the court’s decision today, we affirm the following: 

• We commend the efforts of the South African government that tried to stop the aggression and overcome the international silence and incapacity regarding the brutal massacres committed by the Zionist enemy against the Palestinian people in Gaza. 
• We are surprised by the court’s failure to issue a clear decision for an immediate ceasefire despite its decision to accept South Africa’s lawsuit for the entity’s violation of the Genocide Convention, which diminishes the value of other decisions and interim measures. 
• The decision, which included interim measures, does not rise to the level of the crime practiced by the government of the Zionist entity in the Gaza Strip in its most heinous material, moral, psychological, and social forms.  
• We affirm that the failure to issue international decisions obliging the Zionist enemy to stop the aggression is a result of the failure of the international system and its institutions to protect human rights and the rights of peoples to freedom due to the U.S.-Zionist hegemony over this system, which has become to move according to its interests at the expense of the interests of oppressed peoples. 
• We call on all the free peoples of the world and the living forces in our nation for more pressure in all forms on the hegemonic powers to stop the barbaric aggression on the Gaza Strip. 

Palestinian Islamic Jihad 

We, in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement, see that despite the temporary measures announced by the International Court of Justice in the decisions it issued, which demand in their content that the Zionist entity must stop all actions leading to killing, these decisions have not risen to the level of demanding an immediate halt to the killing and aggression to protect the Palestinian people from the ongoing genocide, which the enemy might exploit to act as it pleases. 

In light of this, we denounce the Court’s reluctance to issue a clear decision obliging the Zionist enemy to an immediate ceasefire, despite its implicit recognition of the genocide being committed by the enemy against our people in Gaza. 

The Court’s reluctance to demand an immediate halt to the fighting is evidence of the control of global forces of evil over the global legal systems for their own interests at the expense of the oppressed. 

On this occasion, we commend the efforts made by the South African government to expose the Zionist criminality and reveal it, breaking the global silence regarding the ongoing genocide against our people. 

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine Central Media Department

Regardless of its direct disregard for the call to stop the aggression on the [Gaza] Strip, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine welcomed the decision of the International Court of Justice in The Hague regarding what it presented today on the urgent measures required to stop the genocide war against our people; expressing hope for the necessity of implementing these decisions and imposing their implementation on the Zionist entity; starting legal accountability mechanisms for this occupation; considering it a brutal occupying force practicing all forms of massacres, killings, siege, displacement, and genocide, despite the fact that the authority to implement the ceasefire decision lies with the United Nations Security Council. 

The Front stated: “Regardless of the fact that the International Court of Justice today did not issue a direct decision to stop the aggression on the Gaza Strip and our rejection of what was mentioned in the decision regarding the legitimate operation of October 7  against the brutal occupation, what was included in the text of its decisions today regarding the response to South Africa’s invitation is a historic decision, and a victory for justice and the Palestinian cause, especially since there is almost consensus from the court judges to proceed in considering the invitation presented by South Africa.” 

The Front expressed its pride and honor in the Republic of South Africa for its great efforts in supporting the just struggle of the Palestinian people, calling for more solidarity and escalating activities to support our people and boycott the occupation, through the continuation of the global intifada of rage against the forces supporting the genocide war, affirming that all forces believing in justice and humanity should escalate their struggle against the system of brutality that exterminates our people from the imperialist powers that have violated our occupied Palestinian land. 

The Front concluded its statement by affirming that the struggle is long to prosecute the leaders of the occupation and their partners in the U.S., Britain, and others for their heinous crimes against the Palestinian people. 

It considered that this invitation presented by South Africa constitutes a step towards achieving this goal, despite the fact that the main bet today in facing genocide, massacres, injustice, and brutality should be on our people first, our Arab nation, and the free people of the world in light of the collusion and inaction of the international system, and their blatant bias towards the occupation. 

These statements have been lightly edited.