ICJ doubles down, indicates new provisional measures in South Africa v. Israel case

The International Court of Justice, the U.N.'s highest court, requested Friday the immediate and unconditional release of the hostages kidnapped by the terrorist group Hamas during the Oct. 7 attack on Israeli soil who have been held since then in Gaza.

The International Court of Justice "finds it deeply disturbing that some of these hostages remain captive in Gaza and reiterates its call for their immediate and conditional release," the court said in a hearing in The Hague reported by AFP.

Furthermore, the International Court noted Israel must "immediately stop its military offensive and any other action in the Rafah governorate that imposes on the Palestinians of Gaza living conditions that could lead to their total or partial physical destruction," according to the ICJ ruling.

Israel had urged the court to reject South Africa's request that the court call for an end to the offensive in Gaza, arguing that a ceasefire would allow terrorists to regroup and make it impossible to obtain the release of the hostages taken by Hamas.

The decision was made public after Israeli forces rescued the bodies of three other Hamas hostages, Israeli national Hanan Yablonka, Brazilian-Israeli national Michel Nisenbaum and Mexican-French national Orion Hernandez, in Jabalia, in the north of the Gaza Strip.