Gaza: Israeli forces have stepped up attacks on Gaza with heavy fighting.
Israeli air raids struck a group of civilians in Jabalia, killing and injuring people.
The attack is now reported to have killed at least 10 people and injured another 17, including children.
“The children were playing in the schoolyard, and suddenly we were bombed,” said one displaced woman whose daughter was injured in the attack. “We lived something unnatural.”
Gaza’s Health Ministry said that 46 people were killed and 130 injured in the latest 24-hour reporting period.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Friday ordered Israel to ‘immediately’ halt its military assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
Reading out a ruling by the International Court of Justice or World Court, the body's president Nawaf Salam said provisional measures ordered by the court in March did not fully address the situation in the besieged Palestinian enclave now, and conditions had been met for a new emergency order.
“Israel must immediately halt its military offensive in Rafah,” he said.
The court also ordered Israel to open the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza to allow in humanitarian aid and said it must provide access to the besieged enclave for investigators and report back on its progress within one month.
The order was adopted by the panel of 15 judges from around the world in a 13-2 vote, opposed only by judges from Uganda and Israel itself.
The court backed a South African request to order Israel to halt its offensive in Rafah, a week after Pretoria called for the measure in a case accusing Israel of genocide.
The ICJ is the highest UN body for hearing disputes between states. Its rulings are final and binding but have been ignored in the past. The court has no enforcement powers.
Israel has repeatedly dismissed the case's accusations of genocide as baseless, arguing in court that its operations in Gaza are self-defence and targeted at Hamas fighters who attacked Israel on October 7. An Israeli government spokesman said on the eve of Friday's decision that “no power on Earth will stop Israel from protecting its citizens and going after Hamas in Gaza.”
