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Middle East crisis live: daily death toll in Gaza higher than any other major 21st century conflict, says Oxfam [1]

['Léonie Chao-Fong', 'Martin Belam', 'Sammy Gecsoyler', 'Reged Ahmad']

Date: 2024-01-11

6h ago 07.04 EST Dozens of people have taken to the streets in Cape Town in one of several demonstrations across South Africa in support of the government’s “genocide” case against Israel, AFP reports. Standing on the steps of the high court in the south-western port city, pro-Palestinian demonstrators held signs reading “Stop the genocide” and “Boycott apartheid Israel”. Seehaam Samaai, a lawyer in attendance, said: “The important issue for us is that there is a ceasefire, that military actions are stopped in Gaza,. “No armed attack on a state territory no matter how serious … can provide justification for or defend breaches of the [genocide] convention,” South African justice minister Ronald Lamola told the court in The Hague. South Africa’s Jewish Board of Deputies has condemned the legal action, accusing the government of antisemitism and of “inverting reality”. “These charges have at their root an antisemitic worldview, which denies Jews their rights to defend themselves,” the body’s chair, Karen Milner, said. South Africa cut off diplomatic ties with Israel over its response to the Hamas attacks on 7 October.

Updated at 07.08 EST

6h ago 06.52 EST Israel posted a budget deficit of 4.2% of GDP in 2023, after a 0.6% surplus in 2022, due to a rise in state spending to finance the war in Gaza, Reuters reports the finance ministry said on Thursday.



6h ago 06.50 EST Haroon Siddique Haroon Siddique is in The Hague at the international court of justice for the Guardian Tembeka Ngcukaitobi told the court there had been “reiteration and repetition of genocidal speech throughout every sphere of state in Israel” naming numerous senior political and military figures, including Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. He said that the effect of such pronouncements was that “the evidence of genocidal intent is not only chilling, it is also overwhelming and in controvertible”. He played the court a video of Netanyahu urging Israelis to “remember what Amalek has done to you”. This is a reference to the Old Testament story in which God commands King Saul to kill everyone in Amalek, “men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys”. Ngcukaitobi then played another video of Israeli troops dancing and chanting “wipe off the seed of Amalek” and “no uninvolved civilians” and said they had taken their cue from the Israeli prime minister.



7h ago 06.41 EST French military now escorting French ships through Red Sea - naval commander French naval forces are accompanying ships with French interests through the Red Sea region, the country’s top naval commander in the area said on Thursday, adding that Paris’ current mandate did not include striking Houthi rebels directly. The Iran-aligned Houthis, who control most of Yemen, have been targeting Red Sea shipping routes to show their support for Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which is fighting Israel in Gaza. Speaking to the media, Reuters reports R Adm Emmanuel Slaars, joint commander of French forces in the region, said France was working closely with the US-led Prosperity Guardian mission in the area by exchanging information and carrying out patrols, but said command of French forces remained entirely under Paris’ control. “The French operation consists of on the one hand patrolling the maritime zones where the Houthis operate to stop them,” Slaars said. “These patrols are in coordination with the Prosperity Guardian operation,” he said. “On the other hand, we regularly escort French-flagged ships or with French interests in the Red Sea. We accompany them all along their crossing.” Map of attacks in the Red Sea area Slaars, who also heads the EU’s mission of nine countries operating in the strait of Hormuz, said there was always a need for more military assets in the region, although France did not intend to deploy more for now.



7h ago 06.38 EST The proceedings in The Hague are being watched around the world. A diplomatic delegation is watching in Pretoria, South Africa. Ahmed el-Fadly, Egyptian ambassador to South Africa, Kabalan Frangieh, Lebanon ambassador to South Africa, Hanan Jarrar, Palestinian ambassador to South Africa, and Ayşegül Kandaş, Turkish ambassador to South Africa, gather to watch the South African government’s genocide case at the headquarters of the Palestinian mission in Pretoria. Photograph: Alet Pretorius/Reuters There is also a simultaneous protest near parliament in London. A sign on the back of a van in Parliament Square in London draws attention to the case being heard in The Hague. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA In The Hague, there are pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian protests taking place. The pro-Palestinian rally has its focus on civilian casualties in Gaza, especially children. The pro-Israeli demonstration is carrying pictures of those still being held in captivity in Gaza by Hamas since 7 October. Palestinian sympathisers protest about the deaths of children in Gaza caused by Israel’s military action. Photograph: Hollandse Hoogte/Rex/Shutterstock Israeli sympathisers in The Hague display images of hostages seized by Hamas and abducted into Gaza on 7 October. Photograph: Robin Utrecht/EPA

Updated at 06.55 EST

7h ago 06.28 EST In the latest segment of its presentation at the ICJ in The Hague, South Africa has made a statement which perhaps gives some insight into how they think Israel will approach mounting its defence presentation in tomorrow’s session. Saying that it was not using much in the way of audio/visual presentation, South Africa’s legal team said: In the speeches to this court today, South Africa has chosen as you’ve heard, to avoid the sharing of graphic videos and photos. It has decided against turning this court into a theatre for spectacle. It knows as well as your excellencies the temptation for both sides in a dispute to parade pictures to shock. South Africa’s application in this court today is built on a foundation of clear legal rights, not images, and the detailed material before the court is marshalled to show a case for provisional measures based firmly on this court’s prior decisions. South Africa advances its case on the basis that Palestinian’s rights are equally as worthy of protection on the unprecedented evidence before you as those of the victim groups that this honourable court has previously protected by its issuance of provisional measures in the past. The material confirms the rights and their violation that Israel has committed, and is committing, acts capable of being characterised as genocidal. You have heard from us about the direct extermination of thousands of people and children of the Palestinian population in Gaza since 7 October last year. And South Africa and the world together stand witness to the forced evacuation of over 85% of the population of Gaza from their homes, and the herding of them into ever smaller areas without adequate shelter or medical care, to be attacked, killed and harmed. So the rights are immediately and urgently in need of protection because of the ongoing denial by Israel of the conditions necessary for life. The South African delegation at the ICJ in The Hague. Photograph: Patrick Post/AP Setting the South African presentation aside from “parading pictures to shock” and becoming a “theatre for spectacle” suggests they may be anticipating that Israel’s presentation will have a focus on graphic images of the atrocities committed on 7 October, and on pictures and footage of the Hamas equipment that the IDF claims to have unearthed inside Gaza next to or in civilian facilities.



7h ago 06.17 EST Patrick Wintour Patrick Wintour is the Guardian’s diplomatic editor An attack and boarding of “Saint Nikolas” off the Oman coast, reported hours after the UN security council in New York passed a resolution condemning attacks on Red Sea shipping by Houthi rebels, is yet to be identified and may be the work of Iranians, not the Houthis based in Yemen. The UK Maritime Trade Organisation (UKMTO) on its social media account revealed 4 to 5 masked men wearing military-style uniforms and masks had boarded a ship 50 nautical miles east of the port of Sohar, an area that has not seen attacks by Houthis previously. The group had covered the surveillance cameras on board. The maritime security firm Ambrey said the ship had been prosecuted in the past for carrying sanctioned Iranian oil, adding that the tanker was headed in the direction of Bandar-e-Jask, Iran. UKMTO urged shipping to proceed with caution. A spokesperson for the ship’s Greek managers Empire Management said they had lost contact with the ship and its 19 strong largely Filipino crew. “The vessel had loaded the previous days in Basrah, Iraq a cargo of crude oil destined to Aliaga, Turkey, via the Suez Canal. The charterer of the vessel is Tupras,” it said. The Houthis have mounted over 25 attacks on commercial shipping since mid November saying the attacks are focussed on Israeli linked ships and designed as acts of solidarity to force Israel to end the siege of Gaza by allowing more humanitarian aid into the country. The direct involvement of the Iranians, allies and suppliers of arms to the Houthis, would be a new and unlikely development. It would underline shipping is safe neither in the Red Sea or Persian gulf. The passing of the UN resolution, by 11 votes to 0 with abstentions from Russia, China, Mozambique and Algeria, had taken the western coalition led by the US and the UK closer to a military strike against the Houthis bases along the Red Sea coast. The resolution does not in itself authorise military action, but upheld the right of UN member states, in accordance with international law, “to defend their vessels from attack, including those that undermine navigational rights and freedoms.” It also called on the Houthis to release the Galaxy Leader, a Japanese-operated vehicle carrier linked to an Israeli businessman that the group commandeered on Nov. 19, and its 25-person crew. Since the passing of the UN resolution Houthi leaders have issued defiant messages claiming the security council is a creature of America due to the US use of its veto on all key votes affecting Israel. If the US had not used its veto to block a UN call for a ceasefire, the Houthis claim they would not have needed to take action to defend Palestine by putting pressure on Israel.



7h ago 06.01 EST The court in The Hague has resumed, with South Africa continuing to present its case against Israel, claiming it has been committing genocide in Gaza. Israel has dismissed the case as “baseless”. You can watch a video stream in this blog – you may have to refresh the page for the play button to appear. We will bring you any key lines that emerge. The next segment is about establishing which Palestinian rights South Africa says Israel is violating. It has opened: Palestinians in Gaza as a very substantial and important part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnic group [and] are entitled to exist. What is happening in Gaza now is not correctly framed as a simple conflict between two parties. It entails, instead, destructive acts perpetrated by an occupying power, Israel, that is subjecting the Palestinian people to an oppressive and prolonged violation of their rights to self determination for more than half a century. And those violations occur in a world where Israel for years has regarded itself as beyond and above the law.



8h ago 05.44 EST Away from proceedings in The Hague for a moment, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, have met in Cairo. Reuters reports that the visit came a day after Sisi met King Abdullah of Jordan and the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, in the Red Sea port of Aqaba. Blinken also met Abbas yesterday, in Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Blinken, who has visited nine countries and the occupied West Bank in a week, brought a rough agreement to Israel that its neighbours would help rehabilitate Gaza after the war and continue economic integration with Israel, but only if Israel commits to eventually allowing the creation of an independent Palestinian state. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, exits a plane as he arrives in Cairo. Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/AFP/Getty Images Israel’s military operation in the Gaza Strip is estimated to have displaced 85% of Gaza’s population, destroyed a large proportion of housing there and caused a humanitarian crisis with hunger and the near-collapse of the healthcare system.

Updated at 05.47 EST

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[1] Url: https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/jan/11/middle-east-crisis-live-updates-israel-gaza-war-hamas-palestine-south-africa-genocide-case-icj?page=with:block-659fce568f08c67fc2910b12#block-659fce568f08c67fc2910b12

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