Foreign News
ICJ orders Israel to halt its offensive on Rafah, Gaza in new ruling
Judges at the top United Nations court ordered Israel to halt its offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah and withdraw from the enclave, in a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of genocide, citing “immense risk” to the Palestinian population.
Friday’s decision marked the third time this year the 15-judge panel has issued preliminary orders seeking to rein in the death toll and alleviate humanitarian suffering in Gaza. While orders are legally binding, the court has no police to enforce them.
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, and any other action in the Rafah Governorate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part,” Salam said, and called the humanitarian situation in Rafah “disastrous”.
South Africa’s lawyers had asked the ICJ in The Hague last week to impose emergency measures, saying Israel’s attacks on Rafah must be stopped to ensure the survival of the Palestinian people.
Reporting from The Hague, in the Netherlands, Al Jazeera’s Step Vaessen said that 13 of the 15 ICJ judges agreed to call on Israel to halt its assault.
“Salam said 800,000 are displaced, and that he doesn’t believe Israel’s word that they are provided safety and humanitarian access. He said there was no evidence of that,” she noted.
“That’s why the court has now made a very strong order that Israel should immediately stop its offensive and military operation in Rafah and withdraw its troops from there. He also made a ruling on border crossings, that they must be reopened as soon as possible to get humanitarian aid in,” Vaessen added.
She said that the judge also stressed that observers from the UN have to get access as soon as possible to make sure that no evidence of any possible war crimes disappear from the region.
The ICJ has also ordered Israel to report back to the court within one month over its progress in applying measures ordered by the institution.
Israel launched its assault on the southern city of Rafah this month, forcing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to flee a city that had become a refuge to about half of the population’s 2.3 million people.
Rafah, on Gaza’s southern edge, has also been the main route in for aid, and international organisations say the Israeli operation has cut off the enclave and raised the risk of famine.
Reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Hind Al Khoudary said that people in the Gaza Strip have not yet reacted to the ICJ ruling since many of them do not have internet connection.
“People here in the Gaza Strip are currently trying to feed themselves … after being constantly displaced. So people are not very well aware of what’s going on. They’re asking journalists … if there is anything positive,” she said.
Khoudary added that, as journalists in Gaza, they do not want to give people in the region false hope and are waiting to hear more information about how the ICJ’s ruling will be implemented in Rafah, where the situation remains tense.
The Palestinian Authority has welcomed the decision on Friday from the International Court of Justice, saying it represents an international consensus to end the war on the Gaza Strip, Palestinian presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina told the Reuters news agency.
Shortly after the ruling, Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich said on the social media platform X that “the State of Israel is at war for its existence.”
“Those who demand that the State of Israel stop the war, demand that it decree itself to cease to exist. We will not agree to that,” he said.
“We continue to fight for ourselves and for the entire free world. History will judge who today stood by the Nazis of Hamas and ISIS [ISIL],” he added.
Reporting from Amman, Jordan, Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan said that diplomatic sources have told Israel’s Channel 13 that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will convene an emergency meeting.
“Foreign Minister Israel Katz, war cabinet minister Benny Gantz and the government’s judicial adviser will be in the meeting. This is how seriously they are taking this ruling,” Khan said.
“We are hearing from political sources speaking to local media that Israel will not respond to the decision of the court, both politically or militarily,” he added.
According to war crimes prosecutor Reed Brody, the ICJ has stepped up to confront the reality in the Gaza Strip.
“I’m really impressed, first of all by South Africa’s tenacity and perseverance and coming back to the court. And the court has responded almost unanimously,” he told Al Jazeera.
Brody noted that South Africa has been asking for an order for Israel to stop its military offensive since the start of the war on Gaza, with the court saying it cannot make a move because Hamas and the Palestinian side is not present on the stand.
“But that’s what they have finally chosen to do here and it’s a testament to this court and what it does,” he said.
“Together with the decision by the ICC prosecutor [to recommend arrest warrants against top Israeli officials], it is a real one-two legal punch.”
against top Israeli officials], it is a real one-two legal punch.”
The ICJ, also known as the World Court, is the highest UN body for hearing disputes between states. Its rulings are final and binding, but have been ignored in the past.
In a highly charged ruling in January, the court ordered Israel to do everything in its power to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza, but stopped short of ordering a halt in the fighting.
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.
(Aljazeera)
Iranian forces have said they struck down two fighter jets belonging to the United States military, one over the southwest part of the country and another around the Strait of Hormuz.
A spokesperson for the Iranian military’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters said on Friday that air defences completely destroyed one F-15 jet. Later in the day, the Iranian military said it targeted an A-10 US aircraft that crashed into the Gulf.
The New York Times had cited unidentified officials as saying that the A10’s pilot was safe after the crash.
But the fate of at least one pilot from the downed F-15 crew is unknown. Several US media outlets reported that one crew member of the jet was located and rescued by US forces, but the other remains missing.
US President Donald Trump told NBC News on Friday that the downing of the jet will not affect the prospect of talks with Tehran. “No, not at all. No, it’s war. We’re in war,” he said.
State media outlets in Iran showed photos of the wreckage of the F-15 jet and what appears to be an ejection seat with an attached parachute.
After the jet was downed, Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf mocked Trump’s repeated claims of victory in the war.
“After defeating Iran 37 times in a row, this brilliant no-strategy war they started has now been downgraded from ‘regime change’ to ‘Hey! Can anyone find our pilots? Please?’” Ghalibaf wrote in a social media post.
There was no immediate comment on the incident from the Pentagon and US Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees military operations in the Middle East and much of Asia.
[Aljazeera]
United States President Donald Trump has announced that Pam Bondi is out as US attorney general, in his second major cabinet-level shake-up in less than a month.
Trump confirmed the decision in a post on Truth Social on Thursday, after a slate of media reports suggested he was considering removing Bondi from the top law enforcement role. Several cited his discontent over Bondi’s handling of investigative files related to financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche will temporarily replace Bondi in an interim capacity, he said.
“Pam Bondi is a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend, who faithfully served as my Attorney General over the past year,” Trump wrote.
The US president also praised Bondi for leading the Department of Justice during a period when violent crime decreased in the US, part of a wider downward trend in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trump did not mention his reasoning for the decision, instead writing, “We love Pam.” He added that she would be “transitioning to a much-needed and important new job in the private sector”.
In a statement, Bondi said she would be transitioning the office to Blanche over the next month, adding she was moving to “an important private sector role I am thrilled about, and where I will continue fighting for President Trump and this Administration”.
“I remain eternally grateful for the trust that President Trump placed in me to Make America Safe Again,” she said.
Bondi’s dismissal comes shortly after Trump abruptly fired Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who oversaw the agency amid a mass deportation campaign that led to the killing of two US citizens.
[Aljazeera]
The ants are flying in Kenya at the moment
During this rainy season, swarms can be seen leaving the thousands of anthills in and around Gilgil, a quiet agricultural town in Kenya’s Rift Valley that has emerged as the centre of a booming illegal trade.
The mating ritual sees winged males leave the nest to impregnate queens, who also take flight at this time. This makes it the perfect time to chase down queen ants to sell on to smugglers who are at the heart of a growing global black market, that taps into the pet craze for keeping ants in transparent enclosures designed to observe the insects as they busily build a colony.
It is the giant African harvester ant queens, which are large and coloured red, that are most prized by international ant collectors – one can fetch up to £170 ($220) on the black market, which tends to operate online.
A single fertilised queen is able to create a whole colony and can live for decades – and can be easily posted as scanners do not tend to detect organic material.
“At first, I did not even know it was illegal,” a man, who asked not to be named, told the BBC about how he had once acted as a broker, linking foreign buyers with local collection networks.
Also known as Messor cephalotes, these ants are native to East Africa and known for their distinctive seed-gathering behaviour making them popular with ant collectors.
“A friend told me a foreigner was paying good money for queen ants – the big red ones which are easily seen around here,” the former broker said.
“You look for the mounds near open fields, usually early morning before the heat. The foreigners never came to the fields themselves – they would wait in town, in a guest house or a car, and we would bring the ants to them packed in small tubes or syringes they supplied us with.”
The scale of the illicit trade in Kenya became apparent last year when 5,000 giant harvester ant queens – mainly collected around Gilgil – were found alive at a guest house in Naivasha, a nearby lakeside town popular with tourists.
The suspects – from Belgium, Vietnam and Kenya – had packed the test tubes and syringes with moist cotton wool, which would enable each ant to survive for two months, according to the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS).
The plan was to take them to Europe and Asia and put them up for sale.
This trade in ants has caught scientists and the authorities by surprise.
The East African nation is more accustomed to high-profile wildlife crimes involving elephant tusks and rhino horns.
UK based retailer Ants RbUs described the giant African harvester ant as “many peoples dream species” – though the queens are currently out of stock, with the site explaining that it is very hard for retailers to source them.
“Even I, as an entomologist, have been surprised at the extent of the apparent trade,” Dino Martins, a biologist based in Kenya, where there are around 600 kinds of ants, told the BBC.
However, he can understand the fascination with East Africa’s harvester, with colonies created by a “foundress queen”, who can grow up to 25mm (0.98 inches) and who produces eggs throughout her life.
“They are one of the most enigmatic species of ants – they form large colonies, engage in interesting behaviours and are easy to keep. They are not aggressive.”
During the swarming he says the queens mate with several males.
“Then that is it for the males – their job is done… most are eaten by predators or die,” the entomologist says, going on to explain how the queen then scurries away to dig a small burrow and begin laying eggs to start her empire.
Her workers and soldier ants, those that protect the nest, are all female and will eventually number in the hundreds of thousands.
“Nests can live for over 50 years, perhaps even up to 70 years. I personally know of nests near Nairobi that are at least 40 years old as I’ve been visiting them for that long,” said Martins.
This means the queens live that long too – because as soon as she dies, the colony collapses and any surviving workers will look for another nest.
Kenyans who have had to deal with ants raiding their crops or invading their houses know this well – and to get rid of a colony someone is sent in to locate the queen, often hidden deep in one of the tunnels or chambers of an ant mound.
The former broker said ants could also be harvested by gently disturbing the mound and collecting them as they tried to escape.
“It was only when I saw the arrests on the news that I realised what I had been part of – and I immediately quit,” he said.
Those arrested were convicted on charges of biopiracy and ordered to pay fines or serve 12 months in jail – they opted to pay the $7,700 fee and the foreign nationals left the country.
Two weeks ago, a Chinese national – the alleged mastermind behind last year’s ring and who is said to have escaped using a different passport, was arrested at Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyata International Airport with another 2,000 queen ants packed in test tubes and tissue rolls.
For Zhengyang Wang, who was part of a team of researchers who published a report on the ant trade in 2023 focusing on China, this is a worry and could “wreak havoc” with local ecosystems.
“Initially, we were very excited when we learnt that many people have taken up keeping ants,” Wang, assistant professor at Sichuan University, told the BBC.
“A colony of pet ants are often kept in a formicarium, which is basically a transparent plastic box so that keepers can observe colonies at work, digging tunnels, collecting food, and guarding their queen. I’d say it’s quite charming and… can be a good way of educating people about insects and their behaviour.
“But then we realised, wait, isn’t keeping invasive species incredibly dangerous?”
Monitoring online sales – of more than 58,000 colonies – in China over six months, the researchers found that more than a quarter of the traded species were not native to China – despite it being illegal to import them.
“If the trade volume of invasive ants continues to grow, it’s only a matter of time before a few escape from their formicaria and become established in the wild,” said Wang.
The study he worked on, published in the journal Biological Conservation, explained what could happen in the case of giant African harvester, one of the most traded species in China: “For example, Messor cephalotes, an East African native, is among the largest seed harvesters in the world and could potentially disrupt predominantly grain-based agriculture in south-eastern China.”
The environmental consequences are also a concern in Kenya.
“Harvester ants are both keystone species and ecosystem engineers. They harvest seeds of grasses, and other plants and in so doing also help to disperse the seeds,” said Martins, adding that the insects “create a more healthy and dynamic grassland”.
Mukonyi Watai, a senior scientist at Kenya’s Wildlife Research and Training Institute, shares these fears.
“Unsustainable harvesting – particularly the removal of queen ants – can lead to colony collapse, disrupting ecosystems and threatening biodiversity,” he told the BBC.
It is possible to collect ants legally in Kenya – in line with various international treaties – with a special permit, which would require the buyer to sign a benefit-sharing agreement with the local community involved to split any profits.
But, according to the KWS, so far none have been applied for – with the paperwork also requiring details of how many ants are being collected and their destination.
formicarium allows collectors to see the workings of an ant colony (BBC)Some conservationists are now calling for greater trade protections for all ant species under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), the global wildlife trade treaty.
“The reality is that no ant species is currently listed under Cites,” Sérgio Henriques, a researcher into the global ant trade, told the BBC.
“Without international treaties monitoring these movements, the scale of the trade remains largely invisible to policy makers and the global community,” he said.
But for the KWS the real problem is more immediate – how to monitor and clamp down on “under-reported” insect trafficking, with the agency suggesting better surveillance equipment at airports and others border points would be a good start.
Martins agrees: “It is likely only a fraction of the actual ants being traded that are being detected, so one can only guess at the scale for now.”
Journalist Charles Onyango-Obbo argues that Kenya is overlooking a significant global revenue opportunity.
“The ants are not finite items like gold or diamonds. They are biological assets that can be bred and farmed, and their production can be scaled up to thousand a day. Yet we treat them like stolen artefacts,” he recently wrote in Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper.
In fact, Kenya’s cabinet did approve policy guidelines last year aimed at commercialising the wildlife economy, including the ant trade.
“The guidelines seek to promote sustainable use trade of wild species such as ants to generate jobs, wealth and community livelihoods across all the counties,” said Watai.
With careful monitoring in place, it could be that future farmers around Gilgil will have special formicaria on their land expanding the yields from their fields and orchards – full of vegetables and fruits – to include lucrative queen ants.
But the debate over the dangers of exporting ants to hobby collectors in different parts of the world is yet to be settled.
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