Israel-Hamas war: German minister criticizes Rafah action

German Economy Minister Robert Habeck said on Saturday Israel's military offensive in Gaza was breaking international law. 

"The famine, the suffering of the Palestinian population and the attacks in the Gaza Strip are, as we are now seeing in court, incompatible with international law," Habeck said, in reference to a ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) calling on Israel to end its offensive in Rafah.

"Israel must not carry out this attack, at least not in the way it did in the Gaza Strip before, bombing refugee camps and so on," Habeck added.

Habeck also said that the war could end immediately if Hamas lays down their arms. Hamas is designated as a terror organization by the US, Germany, EU and others. 

In separate comments on Saturday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was keen to emphasize that Israel should "respect the rules of international law." 

"That is why we have always been very clear in saying that we cannot imagine an offensive in Rafah without terrible, irresponsible human losses," Scholz said.

A statement from a meeting of G7 finance ministers will call on Israel to maintain correspondent banking services between its banks and those in the Palestinian territories so that vital transactions can be carried out and trade and services continued.

The Palestinian economy, which uses the Israeli shekel as legal tender, is reliant on the Israeli banking system for any transactions with the rest of the world.  

The G7 call comes after far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Wednesday said he planned not to renew a banking waiver that is due to expire within weeks.

The waiver protects Israeli banks from lawsuits accusing them of "transferring funds to terror groups" when carrying out transactions involving the Palestinian Authority.

The G7 ministers meeting in Stresa, Italy, will also urge Israel "to release withheld clearance revenues to the Palestinian Authority, in view of its urgent fiscal needs."

Israel has blocked transfers of the tax funds it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, which administrates part of the West Bank, since shortly after the October 7 terror attacks by Hamas, the organization that governs the Gaza Strip.

In the statement, the G7 finance leaders also called for the removal or relaxation of other measures "that have negatively impacted commerce to avoid further exacerbating the economic situation in the West Bank."

The Spanish government demanded that Israel comply with an order by the UN's top court to halt its military offensive in Rafah in southern Gaza.

It stressed that Friday's ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) was legally binding. 

"The precautionary measures set out by the ICJ, including that Israel should cease its military offensive in Rafah, are compulsory. Israel must comply with them," Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares wrote on X, formerly Twitter. 

"The same goes for a ceasefire, the release of the hostages and access for humanitarian aid [to Gaza]," he added.

Spain has been one of the European countries most critical of Israel over the Gaza war.

On Wednesday, Spain, Ireland and Norway said their governments would recognize a Palestinian state. 

The EU's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, has said that the order handed down by the top UN court to Israel to cease its military offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah must be complied with.

 "ICJ [International Court of Justice] orders are binding on the Parties and they have to be fully and effectively implemented," Borrell wrote on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

Although Israel says its assault on Rafah aims to root out the last remnants of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which killed some 1,200 Israelis in an October 7 raid on southern Israel, it is known to be causing huge suffering for thousands of Palestinian civilians in the city.

In their ruling, the judges at the ICJ, also known as the World Court, called the humanitarian situation in Rafah "disastrous" and said more measures were needed to prevent further harm to the civilian population.

Israel has responded to the ruling by saying the actions in Rafah were part of a "defensive and just war" following the October attacks and said its offensive would not "inflict on the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part."

Rulings are legally binding on countries which formally accept the ICJ — which include Israel (and South Africa) — but in practice, they are unenforceable by the court.

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani announced during a meeting with Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa that Rome would resume funding for the United Nations' Palestinian relief organization, UNRWA.

"Italy has decided to resume financing specific projects intended for assistance to Palestinian refugees, but only after rigorous controls that guarantee that not even a penny risks ending up supporting terrorism," he said.

Tajani informed Mustafa that the government had arranged new funding of €35 million ($38 million) for the Palestinian population.

"Of this, €5 million will be allocated to UNRWA," he said in a statement, with the remaining €30 million allocated to Italy's "Food for Gaza" initiative in coordination with UN aid agencies.

Italy was among many nations that suspended funding to the agency after Israel accused about a dozen of its 13,000 Gaza staff of involvement in the October 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas.

An independent review of UNRWA, led by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, found some "neutrality-related issues" but said Israel had yet to provide evidence for its leading allegations.

The Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas appears to have planned to carry out attacks in Germany, a German newspaper has reported.

According to the Welt am Sonntag, maps featuring the Israeli Embassy in Berlin and a US military base in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate were found on a smartphone belonging to a suspected Hamas member who was arrested in the German capital in December.

The newspaper cited security officials as saying the material could have served to facilitate the reconnaissance of the sites as potential targets. 

The man, Lebanese by birth, was arrested on suspicion of trying to find a suitable place forweapons depot in Europe under orders from Hamas' military leadership in Lebanon, the paper said.

It said three other suspected Hamas members were arrested on the same suspicion.

The weapons in the depot were to have been used for potential attacks in Europe, according to the newspaper.

Hamas is classified as a terrorist organization by Israel, the EU, the US and several other countries.

The UN said on Friday that 97 trucks of aid had been delivered to Gaza via the US-built temporary pier on the Palestinian territory's coast.

The UN World Food Programme "took possession of 97 trucks since the floating dock came into operation" on May 17, Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN chief Antonio Guterres, told reporters.

In the first couple of days of deliveries, some Gazans mobbed the trucks as they made their way to warehouses. 

"There were a number of trucks where people, as we put it, self-distributed, but the trucks themselves did make it," Dujarric said.

 "After a rocky start, the situation is stabilized."

"What we want to see, as we've been saying, is massive aid coming in through land routes," the UN spokesman said.

Meanwhile, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that between May 7 and May 23, only 906 truckloads entered the enclave of 2.3 million people, where a famine looms.

The South African government on Friday welcomed the order by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for Israel to immediately halt its offensive in the southern Gaza Strip.

"South Africa welcomes the order handed down by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) today by 13 votes to 2, ordering Israel, in conformity with its obligations under the Genocide Convention and in view of the worsening conditions of life faced by civilians in Rafah, to immediately halt its military operation," a statement issued by the South African presidency said.

“We are gravely concerned that Israel has restricted necessary levels of aid from entering Gaza and has systematically targeted aid and aid infrastructure within Gaza," President Cyril Ramaphosa said.

Toward the end of last year, South Africa filed a genocide case against Israel before the ICJ. Since then, it has pushed for measures to be taken to stop Israel's military offensive in the Palestinian territory.

Israel's military says it is targeting the Hamas militant group, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the US, the EU and other governments.

Israel has argued that it is acting in the interests of self-defense and within the bounds of international law.

Israel's leadership has vowed to continue military operations in Gaza until Hamas has been completely eliminated.

Israel's leadership on Friday said that genocide charges brought by South Africa before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague were "false, outrageous and morally repugnant."

The comments were made in a joint statement issued by the head of Israel's National Security Council and the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The statement comes after the ICJ on Friday ruled that Israel "must immediately halt its military offensive and any other action in the Rafah Governate which may inflict on Palestinian groups in Gaza conditions of life that would bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part."

"Following the horrific attack against the citizens of Israel on October 7th, 2023, Israel embarked upon a defensive and just war to eliminate Hamas and to secure the release of our hostages," Israel's joint statement said. 

Israel said that it was acting on the basis of its right to self-defense "in compliance with international law, including international humanitarian law."

Israel also said it would not conduct military actions in Rafah "which may inflict on the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part."

The Gaza war broke out after Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of some 1,200 people, mostly civilians. 

Militants also took 252 hostages, 121 of whom remain in Gaza, including 37 the Israeli army says are dead.

According to Gaza's Hamas-run Health Ministry, more than 35,000 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory since the war began.

Last week South African lawyers asked the ICJ to order an emergency halt to the military operation in Rafah —  a city in southern Gaza where more than one million people are sheltering — accusing Israel of intensifying what it calls "genocide" in Gaza.

South Africa has also been pushing for Israel to end its wider war in Gaza, but the court held back from issuing an order that covers the entire territory.