Israel sets Ramadan deadline for Rafah assault; ICJ hearing starts

Israel has threatened to invade Gaza's Rafah by the start of Ramadan if Hamas does not return the remaining hostages by then, despite international pressure to protect Palestinian civilians sheltering in the southern city.

With prospects for truce talks dimmed, the U.S. and other governments, as well as the UN, have issued increasingly urgent appeals to Israel to call off its planned offensive on Rafah. 

The Israeli government says the city on the Egypt border is the last remaining stronghold in Gaza of the Palestinian militant group Hamas. It is also where three-quarters of the displaced Palestinian population has fled, taking shelter in sprawling tent encampments without access to adequate food, water or medicine.

"The world must know, and Hamas leaders must know - if by Ramadan our hostages are not home, the fighting will continue everywhere, including the Rafah area," Benny Gantz, member of the three-person war cabinet, said in Jerusalem on Sunday. "Hamas has a choice. They can surrender, release the hostages and the civilians of Gaza can celebrate the feast of Ramadan."

Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, is expected to begin around March 10.

Gantz, a retired military chief of staff, said the offensive will be carried out in coordination with American and Egyptian partners to "minimize the civilian casualties as much as possible." It remains unclear where Palestinians can go after four months of war have flattened vast swathes of the Strip.

For weeks, international mediators have sought to broker a truce-for-hostages deal that would pause fighting for six weeks. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has played down the possibility of an impending breakthrough, calling Hamas's demands "delusional."

Even if a deal is struck, Netanyahu insists the campaign to eliminate Hamas from Gaza will not be completed until clearing Rafah. "Deal or no deal, we have to finish the job to get total victory," he said at the Jerusalem conference on Sunday.

Occupation hearing at World Court begins

With international pressure piling on Israel, the UN's top court opened a week of hearings on Monday examining the legal consequences of the country's 57-year occupation of Palestinian territories. The hearings, requested by the UN General Assembly, are separate from South Africa's high-profile case alleging Israel is committing genocide in its current Gaza offensive.

More than 50 states will present arguments before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague until February 26, following a 2022 request from the UN for an advisory, or non-binding, opinion on the occupation. Israeli leaders have long disputed that the territories are formally occupied on the basis that they were captured from Jordan and Egypt during a 1967 war rather than from a sovereign Palestine.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki accused Israel of subjecting Palestinians to decades of discrimination and apartheid - accusations Israel has rejected - arguing that they had been left with the choice of "displacement, subjugation, or death."

The judges are expected to take several months to deliberate before issuing their opinion. The hearing is part of Palestinian efforts to get international legal institutions to examine Israel's conduct.

Al-Maliki added: "The genocide under way in Gaza is a result of decades of impunity and inaction. Ending Israel's impunity is a moral, political and legal imperative." Israel has said it faces an existential threat by Hamas militants and other groups and is acting in self-defense.

At the UN's Security Council, the U.S. signalled it would veto the latest UN draft resolution seeking an immediate ceasefire should it come to a vote this week. 

Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said the resolution would jeopardize the ongoing truce talks, as well as the broader aim of "an enduring resolution of hostilities."

Western governments have increasingly pushed for unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state to be part of that wider peace process, but Israel's government on Sunday unanimously adopted a declaration rejecting such recognition.

"After the terrible massacre of October 7, there can be no greater reward for terrorism than that and it will prevent any future peace settlement," Netanyahu said.

Hamas has meanwhile threatened to suspend its involvement in any ceasefire negotiations unless relief supplies reach Gaza's north, where aid agencies have warned of looming famine.

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'Gaza deterioration unprecedented'

On Sunday morning, dozens of Israelis blocked Gaza-bound aid trucks from entering through the Nitzana crossing with Egypt. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said nearly three in four people are drinking contaminated water. "The speed of deterioration in Gaza is unprecedented," it said.

After a week-long siege, the largest hospital still functional in Gaza is no longer operational, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

At least 20 of the 200 patients still at the Nasser Hospital urgently require relocation to other facilities, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, adding that his organization "was not permitted to enter" the site.

Hospital operations

Israeli troops in Khan Younis were still operating around the hospital on Sunday after the military said it had "located additional weapons."

Israel has concentrated its military operations in Khan Younis, just a few kilometers from Rafah and the hometown of Hamas's Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar, who is accused of orchestrating the October 7 attack.

The Hamas assault that prefaced the war killed about 1,160 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to Israeli tallies. Militants also took about 250 hostages, 130 of whom remain in Gaza, including 30 presumed dead, according to Israel.

Israel's retaliatory campaign in Gaza has killed at least 29,092 people, mostly women and children, according to the territory's health ministry. In the past 24 hours, 107 Palestinians were killed and 145 injured, the ministry added in a statement.

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