so two big developments:
1. The ICJ gave their main ruling today, and while south africa and others are claiming that this is a huge win for them, i think this is mostly a win for israel tbh. a) The court refused to call anything that has happened "genocide", though they say that it is "plausible" that israel might have or will violate some of those criteria and they haven't thrown out the case for it completely. b) The court didn't call for a ceasefire, which tbh surprises me, though i think that might be because Hamas is a non-state actor so can't be subject to a ceasefire. c) the court ordered Hamas to release all hostages. For me all 3 of those seem to be wins for Israel. The court did order three things: 1. israel must do everything possible to avoid genocidal acts. 2. israel must prevent and punish public incitement of genocide. 3. israel must do everything to encourage humanitarian aid. To me those seem to be things which Israel can do without changing their strategy too much. I was expecting much worse from the ICJ overall tbh.
2. Turns out that a bunch of members of the UN Relief organization for Palestine, the guys in charge of distributing humanitarian aid, were actually involved in the Oct.7 attacks themselves. The aid agency itself already admits this and has terminated them. In terms of PR this is a huge boon to Israel's stance, and a huge blow against much of the UN's stance.