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from exercising its jurisdiction, it is an essential matter to be considered when determining the appropriate measures or remedies in this case.
IV. The armed conflict in Gaza
17. The Court briefly recalls the immediate context in which the present case came before it, namely the attack of 7 October 2023 by Hamas and the military operation launched by Israel in response to that attack (see Order, para 13). The Court, however, fails to give a complete account of the situation which has unfolded in Gaza since that fateful day.
18. On 7 October 2023, on the day of the Sabbath and the Jewish holiday of “Simchat Torah”, over 3,000 Hamas terrorists, aided by members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, invaded Israeli territory by land, air and sea. The assault began in the early morning hours, with a barrage of rockets over the entire country and the infiltration of Hamas into Israeli territory. Alerts sounded all over Israel, civilians and soldiers took shelter, and many were later massacred inside those shelters. In other places, houses were burned down with civilians still in their safe rooms, burning alive or suffocating to death. At the Reim Nova Music Festival, young Israelis were murdered in their sleep or while running for their lives across open fields. Women’s bodies were mutilated, raped, cut up and shot in the worst possible places. Overall, more than 1,200 innocent civilians, including infants and the elderly, were murdered on that day. Two hundred and forty Israelis were kidnapped and taken to the Gaza Strip, and over 12,000 rockets have been fired at Israel since 7 October. These facts have been largely reported and are indisputable.
19. Israel, faced with an ongoing assault on its people and territory, launched a military operation. The Israeli authorities declared that the purpose of the operation is to dismantle Hamas and destroy its military and governmental capabilities, return the hostages, and secure the protection of Israel’s borders.
20. Hamas has vowed to “repeat October 7 again and again”[1]. Hamas is thus an existential threat to the State of Israel, and one that Israel must repel. This terrorist organization rules over the Gaza Strip, exercising military and governmental functions. Hamas seeks to immunize its military apparatus by placing it within and below civilian infrastructure, which is itself a war crime, and intentionally places its own population at risk by digging tunnels under their homes and hospitals. Hamas fires missiles indiscriminately at Israel, including from schools and other civilian installations in Gaza, in the full knowledge that many of them will fall inside Gaza causing death and injuries to innocent Palestinians. This is Hamas’s well-known modus operandi.
21. A few examples illustrate this well. When humanitarian aid enters Gaza, Hamas hoards it for its own purposes. Hamas has made clear that its tunnel network is designed for its fighters, rather than for civilians seeking shelter from the hostilities. Hamas has compromised the inherently civilian nature of schools and hospitals in Gaza, using them for military purposes by storing or launching rockets from and under these sites.
22. The fate of the hostages is especially disturbing. The act of hostage taking committed by Hamas on 7 October constitutes a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 and
- ↑ See “Hamas Official Ghazi Hamad: We Will Repeat the October 7 Attack Time and Again Until Israel Is Annihilated; We Are Victims - Everything We Do Is Justified #Hamas #Gaza #Palestinians https://t.co/kXu3U0BtAP” / X (twitter.com).
