Guaranteeing unfettered access to aid, abiding by international humanitarian law, preventing the commission of all acts within the scope of Article II of the Geneva Convention, and halting genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza are the central tenets of the ICJ order of January 2024 against "Israel". Yet despite South Africa’s case and the subsequent response to it as an encouraging sign and a ray of hope for the Palestinians, latest revelations from British Confederation of twenty-one NGOs, Oxfam indicate that "Israel" has violated, besmirched, ignored, and undermined the court’s directives. It warrants that "Israel" be taken to court again. 

In its latest assessment, Oxfam has accused the Netanyahu regime of leveraging the Israeli bureaucracy to prevent the adequate, equitable, and universal dispensation of aid in famine struck Gaza. This includes aid trucks being stranded for approximately twenty days without approval from the Israelis as Gazans teeter in the absence of basic necessities. Its report titled ‘Inflicting Unprecedented Suffering and Destruction’ Oxfam documents disturbing details of the Israeli establishment’s nonchalance which includes preventing aid stacked at a warehouse containing essentials such as water, incubators and sanitary equipment for Gazans. Furthermore, one of the NGO’s aid cargoes has also remained stranded at the El Arish warehouse in Egypt due to Israeli occupation officials deliberately delaying entry.  As per Director of Middle East and North Africa at the organization, Sally Abi Khalil, "Israel" is actively hindering the dispensation of aid and the international community is not pushing the Netanyahu government hard enough to change course on the prevailing genocide.

The Oxfam report itself documents seven ways in which "Israel" is contributing to one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters -a total military siege amounting to collective punishment, an unjustifiably inefficient process of inspection protocols for aid, authorities arbitrarily rejecting dual-use items, decimation, destruction and disruption in Gaza, attacks on aid workers, humanitarian facilities and convoys, an absence of safety and forced displacement and systematic denial of humanitarian missions as well as access restrictions on humanitarian workers. The seven points clearly demonstrate that "Israel" is weaponizing starvation given that since the ICJ order in January 2024, a 44% decline in aid trucks being allowed into Gaza has been witnessed. The weaponization of starvation claim has also been echoed by EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell who stated that the presence of famine in Gaza is being enabled by as an instrument of war. 

Oxfam is also not in a club of one when it comes to highlighting "Israel’s" deliberate disruption of aid. Organizations such as the Human Rights Watch, Refugees International and lawmakers such as US Senator from the Democratic Party in Maryland, Christopher Van Hollen have both assessed and personally witnessed "Israel" preventing trucks and items such as oxygen cylinders and medical kits for delivering babies from reaching the Gazan population. 

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Cosmetic caution from Washington D.C. has also not prevented Netanyahu and his war cabinet from ensuring that Gazans witness death and destruction during the month of Ramadan. Between March and May 2024, more than 200,000 Gazans in the North of the occupied territory or 70% of the population face famine while rising child deaths and household malnutrition levels also fit into the definition of ethnic cleansing and state sponsored pogroms. 

The question is- In light of such incontrovertible evidence, should the ICJ be invoked again? To answer this one should recall that the court’s indication of provisional measures has legal consequences for "Israel" given that all parties to the Geneva Convention are obliged to prevent and punish acts of genocide. Beyond "Israel", this also applies to third-party states who are mandated to take action against any state-sponsored genocide. This has not been the case however as the United States vetoed UN Security Council resolutions calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and Washington D.C. and its allies have, abetted and assisted "Israel’s" breaches of provisional measures enshrined in the January 2024 order. 

Hence, ignoring "Israel’s" violation of the ICJ order undermines the rules-based international order. It also threatens the institutions that are supposed to guard the safety and sanctity of Palestinian lives enduring bombardments, a decades-long occupation, proliferation of settlements, and far-right Zionism. While the ICJ is reviewing "Israel’s" 57-year occupation in a separate order, its request in response to South Africa’s additional provisional measures have been violated with impunity. 

In its February 2024 assessment, UNICEF has found 90% of children under the age of 2 and 95%  of pregnant and breastfeeding women facing severe food poverty. Additionally, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification which is a multiparter initiative publishing the scale and severity of food insecurity and malnutrition across the world stated that over 90% of Gaza’s population is at a crisis level of acute food insecurity or worse. 

Far right Zionism is also a major impediment to aid dispensation which needs to be accounted for. Fascist Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich unabashedly stated in February 2024 that he blocked a US-funded flour shipment which was being sent to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees. The inability to hold such toxic figureheads accountable is also a failure of the Zionist regime’s judicial system which is already lopsided against Palestinians.  

These realities, as enshrined in Oxfam’s latest assessment clearly warrants "Israel" being taken to the ICJ again. It is not a state but a genocidal regime.