In an independent "Opinion" included in the judgment issued today by International Court of Justice President Judge Nawaf Salam, which responded to South Africa's request to recognize that the spread of famine in the Gaza Strip necessitates an amendment to previous measures, President Salam recalled the United Nations Secretary-General's statement in Rafah a few days ago, describing the ongoing humanitarian disaster in Gaza as "appalling, after all this suffering for many months, that Palestinians in Gaza celebrate Ramadan while Israeli bombs continue to fall, bullets are still flying, artillery is still shelling, and humanitarian aid still faces one obstacle after another."
To illustrate the severity of the humanitarian situation in Gaza, President Salam referenced a joint study by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health, which estimated that in the next six months, if epidemics do not spread in Gaza, there would be 6,550 deaths if a ceasefire were enacted. However, this number would rise to 58,260 if the current situation continues and to 74,290 in the case of escalation. If epidemics do spread, the study's projections increase the figures to 11,580, 66,720, and 85,750 respectively.
Despite stressing the importance of the new measures adopted today by the court, which obligate Israel, under the Genocide Convention, to lift all obstacles preventing the timely and sufficient delivery of humanitarian aid, both food and medical, and to prevent its military from undertaking any actions that threaten the rights of Palestinians in Gaza as a protected group under the treaty, President Salam argued that these measures cannot fully take effect unless there is actual compliance with the Security Council's recent ceasefire resolution for Ramadan, as adopted just days before the International Court of Justice approved its new measures, and a permanent ceasefire is achieved.
