I'm back for the final two submissions in the @CIJ_ICJ hearings on the UNGA's request for an opinion on Israel's obligations to the UN, other international organizations & third states, focusing on aid. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation & the African Union are up. 🧵 @CIJ_ICJ The OIC says Israel is waging an ongoing aggression across the occupied Palestinian territory. It says the Knesset laws targeting UNRWA are racist and illegal, and that all states must provide UNRWA with additional legal and material support.

Hearings continue today in the @CIJ_ICJ hearings on the request for an advisory opinion on Israel's obligations to the UN, other organizations & third states with a focus on aid. Up now: The United Kingdom 🇬🇧. My thoughts 🧵 @CIJ_ICJ The UK says it has consistently urged Israel to facilitate aid in accordance with its international legal obligations. It says it has assessed a clear risk of intll law violations, in part because of Israel's restrictions on humanitarian assistance (why no sanctions, then?!)

Today the United States, Russia & France are delivering submissions in the @CIJ_ICJ hearings on the UN General Assembly's request for an opinion on Israel's obligations to the UN, other international organizations & third states, focusing on aid. Read my report & thoughts here
🧵 @CIJ_ICJ First up: The United States 🇺🇸

This should be wild: Josh Simmons for the US. He starts by characterizing Israel's assault on Gaza as "the conflict in Gaza." He's going to focus on allegations re Hamas appropriating UNRWA facilities and aid + 'Israel's ongoing security concerns.'

Today is Day 2 of the @CIJ_ICJ's hearings on the advisory opinion regarding Israel's obligations with regard to the United Nations, other organizations and third states and the provision of humanitarian aid to Palestine. Here are my thoughts. 🧵

Up first: South Africa 🇿🇦 @CIJ_ICJ Not much new on the table here. South Africa reminds us that dismantling UNRWA is intended by Israel to destroy the viability of the Palestinian state, in that it targets constituent parts of the Palestinian housing, educational and medical system.

Here we go: my thoughts on Day 1 of @CIJ_ICJ hearings in a new proceeding on Israel's actions in Gaza. The UN General Assembly has requested an advisory opinion on Israel's obligations regarding the UN, other orgs & third states in relation to the oPt (full question in photo).🧵 39 states will give oral submissions; another 6, including Israel, have provided written submissions only. Canada did *not* provide a written statement and will not be speaking (the US, UK, France did and will). The UN and 3 multilateral orgs will speaking.

GENOCIDE. GENOCIDE. GENOCIDE. GENOCIDE. GENOCIDE. GENOCIDE. GENOCIDE. GENOCIDE. GENOCIDE. We all saw. We all knew. We all watched.

https://twitter.com/ap/status/1896095140160192912

Why? Let me break it down. It is an act of genocide to deliberately inflict on a protected group 'conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part' (art II(c), Genocide Convention).

“A civilization has been wiped out in Gaza.” A few things🧵

As many point out, this is an admission of complicity in genocide. But it’s actually worse than that—it’s an admission of genocide PLUS.

Genocide refers to certain acts undertaken with ‘intent to destroy’ a protected group, ‘in whole or in part’. These acts are found at Article II of the Genocide Convention. As you can see, a single act can constitute the crime of genocide.

Today's ICC arrest warrants against Israeli PM Netanyahu & Yoav Gallant—and Hamas' Deif—are momentous. This is the first time Western-allied leaders have been charged by an international court with war crimes and crimes against humanity. A 🧵on what we have—and don't have—today. First, note that the pre-trial chamber decisions to issue the warrants have been kept secret to protect witnesses and the ongoing investigations. The ICC has issued summaries of the decisions here icc-cpi.int/news/situation… and here
icc-cpi.int/news/situation…

Some disjointed thread-y thoughts as we go along... 🧵 Up now: Anti-Zionist theory and Practice Nasser Abourahme

What is needed is radical forgetting of Europe, to resist reading the struggle through the primary prism of Jewish Question. #TheAntiZionistIdea @UofTLaw "The content of Zionist subjectivity is the violence of the Palestinian-settler. The terms of praxis are the colonial relation itself. We must begin with the cosmo-political world of Palestinian resistance; the fate of western Jewish anti-Zionism is how it relates to Palestinian struggle"

There is good reason to believe that Sinwar was, in fact, murdered by the IDF. Rather than celebrating death using inflammatory language of "elimination", Canada should be demanding that Israel comply with an independent investigation into the circumstances of Sinwar's death. 🧵

https://twitter.com/JustinTrudeau/status/1846982392546001045

Briefly for now: individuals who are rendered 'hors to combat' (no longer in the fight) by virtue of wounding cannot be targeted. To do so is a violation of common article 3 to the 1949 Geneva Conventions and a war crime under the art. 8(2)(c)(i) of the Rome Statute.

I'll be live-tweeting Birju Dattani's talk at @OsgoodeNews @YorkUniversity, "Crossroads: Anti-Palestinian Racism, Islamophobia & Anti-Semitism" (w-@SherylNestel as discussant). Dattani asks: "Is human rights law fit for purpose?" 🧵
osgoode.yorku.ca/events/human-r… The Arab-Canadian Lawyers' Association says that Anti-Palestinian racism should be included among existing human rights protections. CRT analysis shows how definitions can be manipulated in a political manner. Definitions are not needed by movements to fight oppression.

An important read. It’s personally & collectively terrifying to cognitively confront what we all know—that with each reinfection more of us become vulnerable & fewer of us are meaningfully supported. For each of the past 3 years I’ve been infected twice=6 total known infections🧵

https://twitter.com/globeandmail/status/1827274417069814127

Like @Flannsplainer my longterm symptoms related to covid set in after the first few infections. I’m also quadruple vaxxed. Last year I was also “regularly overcome by a sensation that I can only describe as a full-body panic attack, marked by a racing heart and rapid breathing”.

The ICJ was clear—Israel's responsibilities to the population in Gaza under the law of occupation are commensurate with its level of authority. In this context vaccinating IDF soldiers for polio while failing to ensure Palestinians are vaccinated is evidence of genocidal intent🧵

https://twitter.com/haaretzcom/status/1815001278327795810

Yesterday I tweeted this. The genocide & war-crimes denial crowd got upset over the phrase “refusing to vaccinate.” They claim Israel is providing vaccines to Palestinians in Gaza. There is limited evidence supporting this claim, which in any event entirely misses the point…

The @CIJ_ICJ will be delivering its advisory opinion on the legal consequences of Israel's policies and practices in the occupied Palestinian territory in just a few minutes. This is a Very Big Deal. My thoughts and reactions 🧵

You can watch live here: webtv.un.org/en/asset/k13/k…
@CIJ_ICJ The UN General Assembly requested this opinion in Dec 2022. Several states—including Canada—submitted that the ICJ should decline to exercise its jurisdiction to render the opinion. The Court rejects these arguments, finding there are no compelling reasons for it to so decline.

~1,000 Palestinians are detained at Sde Teiman, which can only be described as an Israeli state torture camp. Prisoners are bound in iron cuffs, continually blindfolded, starved, beaten and publicly raped with sticks. We can’t say we didn’t know. We know.🧵972mag.com/sde-teiman-pri… One whistleblower—a guard—said many “detainees had infected wounds that were not being properly treated… The floor is very dirty & it smells so bad that we were forced to wear face masks. You could hear sometimes the sound of beating and them screaming”: theguardian.com/world/article/…

The @IntlCrimCourt has authorized the UK to submit amicus observations on whether the Oslo Accords bar ICC jurisdiction over Israelis. *This* is why it was a mistake to water down the @NDP @HMcPhersonMP motion on Palestinian state recognition. 🧵 #cdnpoli icc-cpi.int/sites/default/… @IntlCrimCourt @NDP @HMcPhersonMP The UK appears to be taking the position Israel took in 2019, namely, that Palestine cannot delegate criminal jurisdiction to the ICC because (a) it is not a state & (b) under the Oslo Accords Palestine has no criminal jurisdiction over Israelis or Area C. icc-cpi.int/sites/default/…

The man tied lengthwise to the hood of a military jeep in the West Bank by Israeli forces has been with me for days. His name is Mujahed Abadi. This potentially constitutes the war crime of using human shields *but also* a number of other war crimes. 🧵 The war crime of using human shields under Rome Statute art 8(2)(b)(xxiii) requires intent "to shield a military objectives from attack". It's not obvious this intent was present here -- the cruelty looks to me simply gratuitous, rather than part of a discernible military tactic.

Thus far, 50 @YorkUniversity professors have signed this Open Letter to @YorkUPresident & the York Board of Governors denouncing the decision to enlist police to raid the @PYU4P Gaza solidarity encampment on June 6. 🧵The letter is open for signature here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAI… Within ~24 hours of establishing the encampment, the students were issued a trespass notice by the university. Only minutes later, dozens of police in riot gear assembled in a line formation and proceeded to forcibly clear the encampment.

Two days after the ICJ ordered Israel to halt its offensive on Rafah, Israel has attacked a ‘humanitarian area’ in western Rafah, killing 27 Palestinians and injuring dozens. This is not where rockets were fired from. There are no hospitals with ICU units to manage the injuries.

https://twitter.com/hind_gaza/status/1794817252086227317

30 are now confirmed dead and that number is expected to rise significantly

Strap in here we go! The ICJ is now issuing its decision on South Africa's request for additional provisional measures, including an end to Israeli hostilities & withdrawal from Gaza. (SA had requested withdrawal from Rafah but modified the request as the offensive intensified)🧵 watch live:

The Court must first determine whether the situation has changed since the delivery of its earlier order indicating provisional measures. If so, it must decide whether a modification is appropriate under the circumstances.icj-cij.org/multimedia-liv…

We can expect a lot of disinformation as the world takes in the ICC Prosecutor's request for arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant (+ Hamas leaders). Key is the claim that the ICC 'doesn't have jurisdiction' over Israeli leaders. This is not true. Short 🧵 Palestine became a state party to the Rome Statute in 2015 & the Prosecutor has been investigating the situation for years. The ICC has jurisdiction when the “conduct in question” was committed on the territory of a state party or by a national of a state party (art 12(2) RS).