RSS
Media’s Misrepresentation of ICJ Ruling on Rafah: A Pernicious Pattern
Judges, including Sarah Cleveland, arrive at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), during a ruling on South Africa’s request to order a halt to Israel’s Rafah offensive in Gaza, in The Hague, Netherlands, May 24, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Johanna Geron
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an emergency ruling last week as part of South Africa’s case accusing Israel of genocide.
The ruling read, in part, that the Israel Defense Forces must “immediately halt its military offensive, and any other action in the Rafah governorate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”
Five of the 15 judges authored an opinion that accompanied the ruling, with four of the five arguing that it does not halt military action in southern Gaza — but only applies to such action that could bring about, in whole or in part, the destruction of the Palestinian people.
The distinction is important: it allows Israel to continue its military action against Hamas in Rafah.
It was, however, a distinction that was lost on the international media — which invariably interpreted the ruling as ordering Israel to halt its Rafah offensive entirely.
Misleading Headlines
The immediate media reaction to the ruling was a rash of headlines that claimed the UN’s highest court was effectively ordering the IDF to stop its campaign in Rafah.
The BBC, NBC News, CNN, and Newsweek all published pieces that stated the ICJ had ordered an “immediate” end to the military offensive:
While the individual articles included the relevant part of the ruling that makes clear it is not a blanket order against military action, their headlines tell readers the opposite.
Unsurprisingly, the media’s presentation of the ruling has been criticized by Israeli officials, who pointed out that the ICJ ruling does not prevent Israel’s right to both defend itself and free the hostages kidnapped by Hamas on October 7.
“It said genocide is forbidden, and we have no intention of committing genocide. What country would invest so many resources to bring in humanitarian aid, call off attacks and the like, if it intends to commit genocide? We are already doing and will continue to do what the ruling has called for,” one official told Ynet News.
“Sometimes you just cannot confuse them with the facts,” they added. “There is a false narrative that the ICJ ordered a halt to the fighting in Rafah and that is not the case. If the court would have wanted to say anything else, it would have.”
Part of a Pattern
More importantly, the misleading reports on the ICJ’s ruling appear to be part of a trend in which news outlets have misinterpreted critical legal rulings about Israel’s conduct in its war against Hamas.
Following the ICJ delivering its initial ruling on South Africa’s case in late January, the majority of media organizations claimed the court had decided there was a “plausible” claim of Israeli genocide in Gaza — an allegation that was immediately refuted by legal experts who had read the ruling in its entirety.
Yet, for weeks, news outlets continued to print the pernicious lie that the UN court had effectively decided that there was credible evidence that Israel was perpetrating genocide.
Indeed, it was not until ICJ judge Joan Donoghue, who served as president of the court between February 2021 and February 2024, appeared on the BBC current affairs program HARDTalk in April that the media started correctly reporting on the court’s decision.
Speaking to the BBC’s Stephen Sackur, Donoghue explained that she was “glad” to have the opportunity to explain the effect of the ruling.
“The court decided that the Palestinians had a plausible right to be protected from genocide and that South Africa had the right to present that claim in the court,” she said. “It then looked at the facts as well. But it did not decide — and this is something where I’m correcting what’s often said in the media — it didn’t decide that the claim of genocide was plausible.”
Donoghue’s unequivocal correction of the media’s misreporting should have served as a valuable lesson for news outlets in navigating the complexity and nuance of legal rulings.
And yet, just weeks later, as the International Criminal Court (ICC) lead prosecutor Karim Khan announced he would seek arrest warrants for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant alongside several Hamas leaders, the media once again skewed the facts.
Failing to understand the distinction between Khan seeking arrest warrants to be issued and them actually being issued, several news outlets suggested the latter had occurred.
NPR, for example, aired a two-minute segment “examining Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer’s statements on the ICC issuing arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”
The Hill also implied warrants had already been issued in a piece headlined, ‘”US lashes out after Israeli officials targeted with arrest warrants,” which told readers that the ICC itself had “filed arrest warrants against two top Israeli leaders over the war in Gaza…”
The media have — whether by intention or carelessness — misinterpreted three separate legal orders that relate to Israel’s war against Hamas.
On each occasion, their misreporting was damaging to Israel.
British author Ian Fleming famously said, “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.”
How salient his observation seems now.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post Media’s Misrepresentation of ICJ Ruling on Rafah: A Pernicious Pattern first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Security Warning to Israelis Vacationing Abroad Ahead of holidays
A passenger arrives to a terminal at Ben Gurion international airport before Israel bans international flights, January 25, 2021. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – Ahead of the Jewish High Holidays, Israel’s National Security Council (NSC) published the latest threat assessment to Israelis abroad from terrorist groups to the public on Sunday, in order to increase the Israeli public’s awareness of the existing terrorist threats around the world and encourage individuals to take preventive action accordingly.
The NSC specified that the warning is an up-to-date reflection of the main trends in the activities of terrorist groups around the world and their impact on the level of threat posed to Israelis abroad during these times, but the travel warnings and restrictions themselves are not new.
“As the Gaza war continues and in parallel with the increasing threat of terrorism, the National Security Headquarters stated it has recognized a trend of worsening and increasing violent antisemitic incidents and escalating steps by anti-Israel groups, to the point of physically harming Israelis and Jews abroad. This is in light of, among other things, the anti-Israel narrative and the negative media campaign by pro-Palestinian elements — a trend that may encourage and motivate extremist elements to carry out terrorist activities against Israelis or Jews abroad,” the statement read.
“Therefore, the National Security Bureau is reinforcing its recommendation to the Israeli public to act with responsibility during this time when traveling abroad, to check the status of the National Security Bureau’s travel warnings (before purchasing tickets to the destination,) and to act in accordance with the travel warning recommendations and the level of risk in the country they are visiting,” it listed, adding that, as illustrated in the past year, these warnings are well-founded and reflect a tangible and valid threat potential.
The statement also emphasized the risk of sharing content on social media networks indicating current or past service in the Israeli security forces, as these posts increase the risk of being marked by various parties as a target. “Therefore, the National Security Council recommends that you do not upload to social networks, in any way, content that indicates service in the security forces, operational activity, or similar content, as well as real-time locations.”
RSS
Israel Intensifies Gaza City Bombing as Rubio Arrives
Displaced Palestinians, fleeing northern Gaza due to an Israeli military operation, move southward after Israeli forces ordered residents of Gaza City to evacuate to the south, in the central Gaza Strip September 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Israeli forces destroyed at least 30 residential buildings in Gaza City and forced thousands of people from their homes, Palestinian officials said, as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived on Sunday to discuss the future of the conflict.
Israel has said it plans to seize the city, where about a million Palestinians have been sheltering, as part of its declared aim of eliminating the terrorist group Hamas, and has intensified attacks on what it has called Hamas’ last bastion.
The group’s political leadership, which has engaged in on-and-off negotiations on a possible ceasefire and hostage release deal, was targeted by Israel in an airstrike in Doha on Tuesday in an attack that drew widespread condemnation.
Qatar will host an emergency Arab-Islamic summit on Monday to discuss the next moves. Rubio said Washington wanted to talk about how to free the 48 hostages – of whom 20 are believed to be still alive – still held by Hamas in Gaza and rebuild the coastal strip.
“What’s happened, has happened,” he said. “We’re gonna meet with them (the Israeli leadership). We’re gonna talk about what the future holds,” Rubio said before heading to Israel where he will stay until Tuesday.
ABRAHAM ACCORDS AT RISK
He was expected to visit the Western Wall Jewish prayer site in Jerusalem on Sunday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and hold talks with him during the visit.
US officials described Tuesday’s strike on the territory of a close US ally as a unilateral escalation that did not serve American or Israeli interests. Rubio and US President Donald Trump both met Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani on Friday.
Netanyahu signed an agreement on Thursday to push ahead with a settlement expansion plan that would cut across West Bank land that the Palestinians seek for a state – a move the United Arab Emirates warned would undermine the US-brokered Abraham accords that normalized UAE relations with Israel.
Israel, which blocked all food from entering Gaza for 11 weeks earlier this year, has been allowing more aid into the enclave since late July to prevent further food shortages, though the United Nations says far more is needed.
It says it wants civilians to leave Gaza City before it sends more ground forces in. Tens of thousands of people are estimated to have left but hundreds of thousands remain in the area. Hamas has called on people not to leave.
Israeli army forces have been operating inside at least four eastern suburbs for weeks, turning most of at least three of them into wastelands. It is closing in on the center and the western areas of the territory, where most of the displaced people are taking shelter.
Many are reluctant to leave, saying there is not enough space or safety in the south, where Israel has told them to go to what it has designated as a humanitarian zone.
Some say they cannot afford to leave while others say they were hoping the Arab leaders meeting on Monday in Qatar would pressure Israel to scrap its planned offensive.
“The bombardment intensified everywhere and we took down the tents, more than twenty families, we do not know where to go,” said Musbah Al-Kafarna, displaced in Gaza City.
Israel said it had completed five waves of air strikes on Gaza City over the past week, targeting more than 500 sites, including Hamas reconnaissance and sniper sites, buildings containing tunnel openings and weapons depots.
Local officials, who do not distinguish between militant and civilian casualties, say at least 40 people were killed by Israeli fire across the enclave, a least 28 in Gaza City alone.
RSS
Turkey Warns of Escalation as Israel Expands Strikes Beyond Gaza
Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a press conference with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis (not seen) at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey, May 13, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
i24 News – An Israeli strike targeting Hamas officials in Qatar has sparked unease among several Middle Eastern countries that host leaders of the group, with Turkey among the most alarmed.
Officials in Ankara are increasingly worried about how far Israel might go in pursuing those it holds responsible for the October 7 attacks.
Israel’s prime minister effectively acknowledged that the Qatar operation failed to eliminate the Hamas leadership, while stressing the broader point the strike was meant to make: “They enjoy no immunity,” the government said.
On X, Prime Minister Netanyahu went further, writing that “the elimination of Hamas leaders would put an end to the war.”
A senior Turkish official, speaking on condition of anonymity, summed up Ankara’s reaction: “The attack in Qatar showed that the Israeli government is ready to do anything.”
Legally and diplomatically, Turkey occupies a delicate position. As a NATO member, any military operation or targeted killing on its soil could inflame tensions within the alliance and challenge mutual security commitments.
Analysts caution, however, that Israel could opt for covert measures, operations carried out without public acknowledgement, a prospect that has increased anxiety in governments across the region.
Israeli officials remain defiant. In an interview with Ynet, Minister Ze’ev Elkin said: “As long as we have not stopped them, we will pursue them everywhere in the world and settle our accounts with them.” The episode underscores growing fears that efforts to hunt Hamas figures beyond Gaza could widen regional friction and complicate diplomatic relationships.