Middle East: ICJ says Israel must ensure basic needs of Gaza

The World Health Organization led the evacuation of 41 critical patients and 145 of their companions out of Gaza, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, marking the first time such an evacuation took place after the US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. 

"Around 15 000 patients are still waiting for approval to receive medical care outside Gaza," Tedros posted on his X account, calling on countries to facilitate such evacuations and "show their solidarity."

Hundreds of prominent Jewish figures have signed an open letter calling on the United Nations and countries around the world to impose sanctions on Israel due to "unconscionable" conduct in Gaza, Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank which they say amounts to "genocide."

"We bow our heads in immeasurable sorrow as the evidence accumulates that Israel's actions will be judged to have met the legal definition of genocide," reads the letter, which was reported by the British newspaper The Guardian on Wednesday.

Among the 450 signatories are the former speaker of the Israeli Knesset, Avraham Burg, former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy, Oscar-winning film-maker Jonathan Glazer, American actor Wallace Shawn, British author Michael Rosen, Canadian author Naomi Klein, Pulitzer prize-winning author Benjamin Moser and Emmy winners Ilana Glazer and Hannah Einbinder.

"Our solidarity with Palestinians is not a betrayal of Judaism, but a fulfillment of it," the signatories write. "When our sages taught that to destroy one life is to destroy an entire world, they did not carve exceptions for Palestinians. We shall not rest until this ceasefire carries forward into an end of occupation and apartheid."

The appeal comes ahead of a meeting of European Union leaders in Brussels on Thursday, where reports suggest plans to sanction Israel could be shelved.

It also comes as opinion among both Jews and non-Jews in the United States has shifted since the start of Israel's military campaign in Gaza, launched in response to the deadly Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.

According to a Washington Post poll conducted in September, 61% of American Jews believe that Israel has committed war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza, while 39% think it has committed genocide.

"We do not forget that so many of the laws, charters, and conventions established to safeguard and protect all human life were created in response to the Holocaust," reads the open letter. "Those safeguards have been relentlessly violated by Israel."

The Palestinian delegate to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) said the world must make sure that Israel complies with the ruling to allow aid into Gaza.

According to delegate Ammar Hijazi, the international community needs to "rise up to the challenge" due to the fact Israel "will not uphold" its responsibilities, as detailed by the ruling, adding other countries should bring Israel "into compliance."

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled on Wednesday that Israel must meet the fundamental needs of people in the Gaza Strip, including facilitating the passage of much-needed aid into the enclave.

"As an occupying power, Israel is obliged to ensure the basic needs of the local population, including the supplies essential for their survival," said ICJ President Yuji Iwasawa.

"The court recalls Israel's obligation not to use starvation of the civilian population as a method of warfare."

The Israeli government has often refused to work with international aid organizations such as UNRWA, accusing its employees of being sympathizers or even members of the Islamist militant group Hamas.

But the panel of 11 judges at the UN's top legal body also found that Israel is yet to substantiate such claims, saying: "The court considers that Israel is under an obligation to agree to and facilitate relief schemes provided by the United Nations and its entities, including UNRWA."

Advisory opinions of the ICJ, also known as the World Court, carry legal and political weight, but they are not binding and the court has no power of enforcement.

US Vice President JD Vance said he had discussed the establishment of an "international security force" with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as part of plans to move beyond the current ceasefire in Gaza.

Vance reiterated that no American troops would be deployed to Gaza as part of such a force, but would help coordinate operations from the US Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) in Kiryat Gat, Israel.

The United Kingdom has also expressed readiness to send a small contingent of military officers to assist in monitoring the ceasefire.

But as German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul stated recently, ruling out German participation, any international peacekeeping force inside the Gaza Strip would have to be acceptable to the Palestinian population and would therefore likely have to consist of troops from Muslim countries.

Egypt, Qatar and Indonesia have signaled a willingness to contribute, as has NATO member Turkey, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan saying two weeks ago that the Ankara could play a role "in the field."

Asked about the Turkish suggestion on Wednesday, however, Netanyahu responded: "I have very strong opinions about that. Want to guess what they are?"

Turkey and Israel once enjoyed relatively good relations, but Erdogan has sharply criticized Israel's conduct of the war and recently called Netanyahu the "biggest obstacle to regional peace."

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to visit Israel on Thursday, according to the Israeli government.

"This [will be] the secretary of state's third trip to Israel since mid-September which further shows the hand-in-hand relationship that Israel and the United States have as we mark this historic time," said a spokeswoman.

With Vice President JD Vance and special envoy Steve Witkoff already in the country on Tuesday and Wednesday, Rubio's visit on Thursday will make it three senior Washington officials in a week.

Rubio will meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday, the spokeswoman added.

Israel has returned the bodies of 30 more Palestinians to Gaza, bringing the total number handed over under the ceasefire deal to 195, the Hamas-run health ministry in the devastated enclave confirmed on Wednesday.

Under the deal brokered by US President Donald Trump, Israel was to turn over the bodies of 15 deceased Palestinians for every Israeli body returned.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had confirmed that the remains of two more hostages returned the day before had been identified as those of Aryeh Zalmanovich and Master Sergeant Tamir Adar.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that his country can act independently from the United States and is not reliant upon Washington for security.

"We are not a protectorate of the United States," Netanyahu said in a statement issued by his office as he headed into a meeting with US Vice President JD Vance in Jerusalem on Wednesday. "Israel is the one that will decide on its security."

His comments were likely intended to ease public concerns that the presence of an international security force in Gaza, as envisioned by the US-brokered ceasefire, could limit Israel's ability to strike at perceived future threats in the enclave.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has defended his country's military campaign in the Gaza Strip over the past two years, crediting it with securing the release of all Israeli hostages who remained alive.

The Palestinian militant group Hamas took 250 hostages during its attacks on Israel October 7, 2023, and killed around 1,200 more, prompting a retaliatory assault on Gaza which has left the enclave in ruins.

"We've been able to do two things," said Netanyahu on Wednesday during a televised news conference. "Put the knife up to Hamas' throat. That was the military effort guided by Israel. And the other effort was to isolate Hamas and the Arab and Muslim world, which I think [US President Donald Trump] did brilliantly with his team. So those two things produced the hostages."

However, Netanyahu has faced criticism from some domestic opponents for accepting the US-brokered ceasefire with Hamas seemingly not having been entirely defeated.

Since last week's ceasefire, the Islamist group has deployed thousands of armed security personnel to the streets of Gaza in an attempt to reestablish its grip on the territory.

It has also ruled out any prospect of disarming before it has achieved its stated goal of a Palestinian state in the region.     

Some of the bodies of deceased Palestinians returned by Israel as part of the ceasefire deal bear "evidence of torture," according to a senior health official in Gaza, who has called for an investigation.

Last week 165 bodies were sent back to Gaza, and dozens of people gathered outside the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis on Wednesday for funeral prayers for 54 of them, unidentified and clad in white shrouds. They will be transported to the central Gazan city of Deir al-Balah for burial.

Israel has not provided identification for the bodies or explained their origins. They could include Palestinians who died during the October 7 attacks, detainees who died in custody or bodies that were taken from Gaza by Israeli troops during the subsequent two-year war.

So far, the Gaza Health Ministry says 52 returned bodies have been identified.

As part of the truce, Israel agreed to release some 2,000 Palestinian detainees. At least 1,700 had no charges against them, and some of them were children.

According to the Gaza Heath Ministry, whose numbers the United Nations says are credible, at least 68,000 people have died in the current conflict, most of them civilians. Leading scholars as well as international bodies like the UN have called Israel's actions in the territory consistent with genocide.

Israelis living in illegal West Bank settlements have been assaulting Palestinians as they attempt to bring in the olive harvest in the occupied territory this week, leaving at least one woman in hospital with serious injuries.

The Associated Press (AP) news agency said it had seen video footage of masked men chasing Palestinian farmers and activists through olive groves near the town of Turmus Ayya on Sunday.

In one video, a masked man who reportedly appeared to be wearing Jewish religious clothing could apparently be seen beating a woman as she lay motionless on the ground. Other footage reportedly shows men in masks pursuing and clubbing a car.

"Settler violence has skyrocketed in scale and frequency," said Ajith Sunghay, the head of the UN Human Rights Office in the Palestinian territory, in a statement released on Tuesday.

"Two weeks into the start of the 2025 harvest, we have already seen severe attacks by armed settlers against Palestinian men, women, children and foreign solidarity activists."

According to the United Nations, the first half of 2025 saw a 13% increase in violent assaults on Palestinians by Israeli settlers compared to the same period last year, with 757 documented attacks causing casualties or damage to property.

The first week of this year's olive harvest season has seen more than 700 olive trees uprooted, broken or poisoned in over 150 settler attacks, according to Muayyad Shaaban, whose department in the Palestinian Authority tracks settler violence.

Israel's Channel 12 broadcaster reported that the head of the West Bank police force said in an internal police WhatsApp group that the footage of the masked settler beating the woman "kept him up at night" and instructed officers to bring the settler to justice.

The construction of Israeli settlements in the territory, which is illegal under international law, has been pursued by successive Israeli governments since the 1990s. The rate of new settlements has increased sharply under the current Israeli government, encouraged by extremist minister such as Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, themselves from settler families.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that plans for the permanent governance and security of post-war Gaza had been discussed.

"We're creating an unbelievable 'day after' with a completely new vision of how to have the civil government, how to have the security there, who could provide that security," he said after a meeting with US Vice President JD Vance in Jerusalem.

"We're creating a peace plan and an infrastructure here where nothing existed even a week and a day ago," he said. "It's going to require a lot of work. It requires a lot of ingenuity. It's not going to be easy, but I think it's possible."

In terms of security, Netanyahu said that Israel "[does] what we have to do" and claimed that a "strong Israel" was in the interests of the United States.

"A strong Israel serves America's interests in stabilizing this very unstable region, and you can't stabilize it without a strong Israel," he said. "We make common decisions which I think [serve] both. That's what we discussed today."

US Vice President JD Vance has cautioned that there are significant challenges ahead when it comes to disarming the Islamist group Hamas and rebuilding the devastated Gaza Strip.

"We have a very, very tough task ahead of us, which is to disarm Hamas but rebuild Gaza, to make life better for the people of Gaza, but also to ensure that Hamas is no longer a threat to our friends in Israel," Vance said during a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Wednesday.

He also said that the Gaza ceasefire brokered by Washington could pave the way for broader alliances for Israel across the Middle East.

"I think this Gaza deal is a critical piece of unlocking the Abraham Accords," he said, referring to the series of normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab countries in 2020.

"What it could allow is an alliance structure in the Middle East that perseveres, that endures, and that allows the good people in this region, the world, to step up and take ownership of their own backyard."

Hello and welcome to DW's coverage of developments in Israel, the Palestinian territorities and the wider Middle East on Wednesday, October 22.

US Vice President JD Vance is continuing his visit to Israel in an effort to shore up support for the ceasefire and progress post-war reconstruction plans brokered by President Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press (AP) has obtained video footage showing more Israeli settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.