Opinion | Time for world to follow South Africa’s moral lead on Gaza war

On Thursday, the International Court of Justice demanded that Israel permit unhindered provision of essential supplies and aid to Gaza, including food, water, fuel and medical supplies. The UN’s top court further ordered Tel Aviv to prevent its military from harming the rights of Palestinians under the Genocide Convention.

The ICJ’s orders come in response to the “urgent request” which South Africa filed on March 6, asking the court to bolster the provisional measures it handed down on January 26, as part of South Africa’s case alleging Israeli genocide.

Even though the agony of Palestinians is likely to continue because the ICJ has not ordered a ceasefire, the court’s measures are receiving wide acclaim from Egyptians who are deeply dismayed by the daily images of starving Palestinian women and children in the border city of Rafah which Israel has bombarded with air strikes since February. Egyptians have loudly shouted that Israel’s hindering of aid into Gaza constitutes a form of man-made starvation.

Egyptians are also applauding the pro-Palestinian stance of UN expert Francesca Albanese, who recently said she was being threatened over a report she published in which she accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. As fears grow of Gazans dying of starvation, the ICJ’s orders should be viewed as a victory for South Africa. It indicates a potential change in the geopolitical order – a shift in the global legal order and a victory for the international rule of law.

There is a growing fear today that hardline Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is planning a ground assault on Rafah. The government of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi threatened in February to suspend the Camp David Accords it signed with Israel in 1978 – if the Israeli military invades Rafah and tries to expel Palestinians into the Sinai Peninsula.

Observing the ICJ orders from Egypt is like viewing them through two lenses and two identities – one Arab and the other African – with Egyptians praising Pretoria for filing the ICJ case. More than once, I have heard Egyptians celebrating Pretoria and crying out that “we’re all South Africans”. This rising spirit of Africanism among Egyptians deserves some reckoning.