South Africa asked the United Nations to make Israel give food and supplies to the people in Gaza who are starving. They believe Israel’s military actions in Gaza are breaking the Genocide Convention. Israel is saying that they did not break the agreement.
South Africa asked for more help from the International Court of Justice because the situation in Gaza, where many people are suffering from hunger, has gotten worse due to Israel breaking the rules.
In January, lawyers for Israel said that the war in Gaza was to protect its people. They also said that Hamas militants were the ones responsible for killing a large number of people. The Israeli foreign ministry did not respond right away on Wednesday night to South Africa’s new request.
Aid groups say that Gaza is facing a big problem, and the situation is especially bad in the isolated north. Many of the around 300,000 people who still live there have to eat food that is usually given to animals in order to survive. The United Nations It is said that one out of every six children under two years old in the north is suffering from severe malnutrition.
“South Africa is asking the Court to act quickly to help save the Palestinians in Gaza from starving to death. ” This was stated in a written request from South Africa.
The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Wednesday that even though aid workers had a lot of problems, they were able to do a lot more to help people in February. The report said there was a 48 per cent increase in helping missions compared to the month before.
However, the office also said that they are having trouble helping people because they had to stop working in the northern areas and the safety of civilians and aid workers has been getting worse.
South Africa said Israel broke rules set by the court on Jan. When judges told Israel to stop people from dying or being hurt in Gaza, but didn’t say they had to stop using their military in the area.
On Wednesday, South Africa asked the court to tell Israel to quickly provide help for hunger and other problems. It asked the judges to make decisions quickly without having a meeting first because the situation was very urgent.
The fighting started when Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct. In 2007, Palestinian fighters killed 1,200 people and took 250 hostages. Over 100 of them were set free during a week of peace in November.
The attack led to Israel sending troops into the area where 2. 3 million people live. Yesterday, the Health Ministry in Gaza reported that 30,717 Palestinians have died in the war. The ministry is a part of the government run by Hamas and keeps careful records of people who have been hurt or killed. It doesn’t count separately the number of civilians and soldiers killed. Instead, it says that about two-thirds of the people killed are women and children.
The number of people who have died has kept going up since January.