PORTLAND, Oregon: The Boeing jetliner that suffered an inflight blowout over Oregon was not being used for flights to Hawaii after a warning light that could have indicated a pressurization problem lit up on three different flights, a federal official said Sunday.
Alaska Airlines decided to restrict the aircraft from long flights over water so the plane “could return very quickly to an airport” if the warning light reappeared, said Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board.
Homendy cautioned that the pressurization light might be unrelated to Friday’s incident in which a plug covering an unused exit door blew off the Boeing 737 Max 9 as it cruised about three miles (4.8 kilometers) over Oregon.
The warning light came on during three previous flights: on Dec. 7, Jan. 3 and Jan. 4 — the day before the door plug broke off. Homendy said she didn’t have all the details regarding the Dec. 7 incident but specified the light came on during a flight on Jan. 3 and on Jan. 4 after the plane had landed.
The NTSB said the lost door plug was found Sunday near Portland, Oregon, by a school teacher — for now, known only as Bob — who discovered it in his backyard and sent two photos to the safety board. Investigators will examine the plug, which is 26 by 48 inches (66 by 121 centimeters) and weighs 63 pounds (28.5 kilograms), for signs of how it broke free.
Investigators will not have the benefit of hearing what was going on in the cockpit during the flight. The cockpit voice recorder — one of two so-called black boxes — recorded over the flight’s sounds after two hours, Homendy said.
At a news conference Sunday night, Homendy provided new details about the chaotic scene that unfolded on the plane. The explosive rush of air damaged several rows of seats and pulled insulation from the walls. The cockpit door flew open and banged into a lavatory door.
The force ripped the headset off the co-pilot and the captain lost part of her headset. A quick reference checklist kept within easy reach of the pilots flew out of the open cockpit, Homendy said.
The plane made it back to Portland, however, and none of the 171 passengers and six crew members was seriously injured.
Hours after the incident, the FAA ordered the grounding of 171 of the 218 Max 9s in operation, including all those used by Alaska Airlines and United Airlines, until they can be inspected. The airlines were still waiting Sunday for details about how to do the inspections.
Alaska Airlines, which has 65 Max 9s, and United, with 79, are the only US airlines to fly that particular model of Boeing’s workhorse 737. United said it was waiting for Boeing to issue a “multi-operator message,” which is a service bulletin used when multiple airlines need to perform similar work on a particular type of plane.
Boeing was working on the bulletin but had not yet submitted it to the FAA for review and approval, according to a person familiar with the situation. Producing a detailed, technical bulletin frequently takes a couple days, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe a matter that the company and regulators have not publicly discussed.
Boeing declined to comment.
Without some of their planes, cancelations began to mount at the two carriers. Alaska Airlines said it canceled 170 flights — more than one-fifth of its schedule — by mid-afternoon on the West Coast because of the groundings, while United had scrapped about 180 flights while salvaging others by finding different planes.
Democratic US Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, chair of the Senate’s Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, said she agreed with the decision to ground the Max 9s.
“Aviation production has to meet a gold standard, including quality control inspections and strong FAA oversight,” she said in a statement.
Before the discovery of the missing plug, the NTSB had pleaded with residents in an area west of Portland called Cedar Hills to be on the lookout for the object.
On Sunday, people scoured dense thickets wedged between busy roads and a light rail train station. Adam Pirkle said he rode 14 miles (22 kilometers) through the overgrowth on his bicycle.
“I’ve been looking at the flight track, I was looking at the winds,” he said. “I’ve been trying to focus on wooded areas.”
Before the school teacher named Bob found the missing door plug, searchers located two cell phones that appeared to have belonged to passengers on Friday’s terrifying flight. One was discovered in a yard, the other on the side of a road. Both were turned over to the NTSB, which vowed to return them to their owners.
Alaska Airlines flight 1282 took off from Portland at 5:07 p.m. Friday for a two-hour trip to Ontario, California. About six minutes later, the chunk of fuselage blew out as the plane was climbing at about 16,000 feet (4.8 kilometers).
One of the pilots declared an emergency and asked for clearance to descend to 10,000 feet (3 kilometers), where the air would be rich enough for passengers to breathe without oxygen masks.
Videos posted online by passengers showed a gaping hole where the paneled-over door had been. They applauded when the plane landed safely about 13 minutes after the blowout. Firefighters came down the aisle, asking passengers to remain in their seats as they treated the injured.
It was extremely lucky that the airplane had not yet reached cruising altitude, when passengers and flight attendants might be walking around the cabin, Homendy said.
The aircraft involved rolled off the assembly line and received its certification two months ago, according to online FAA records. It had been on 145 flights since entering commercial service Nov. 11, said FlightRadar24, another tracking service. The flight from Portland was the aircraft’s third of the day.
The Max is the newest version of Boeing’s venerable 737, a twin-engine, single-aisle plane frequently used on US domestic flights. The plane went into service in May 2017.
Two Max 8 jets crashed in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people. All Max 8 and Max 9 planes were grounded worldwide for nearly two years until Boeing made changes to an automated flight control system implicated in the crashes.
The Max has been plagued by other issues, including manufacturing flaws, concern about overheating that led FAA to tell pilots to limit use of an anti-ice system, and a possible loose bolt in the rudder system.
Boeing jetliner that suffered inflight blowout was restricted because of concern over warning light
https://arab.news/ymb73
Boeing jetliner that suffered inflight blowout was restricted because of concern over warning light
US military says Gaza Strip pier project is completed, aid to soon flow as Israel-Hamas war rages on
US military says Gaza Strip pier project is completed, aid to soon flow as Israel-Hamas war rages on
- Overnight construction sets up a complicated delivery process more than two months after US President Joe Biden ordered it to help Palestinians facing starvation
The final, overnight construction sets up a complicated delivery process more than two months after US President Joe Biden ordered it to help Palestinians facing starvation as food and other supplies fail to make it in as Israel recently seized the key Rafah border crossing in its push on that southern city on the Egyptian border.
Fraught with logistical, weather and security challenges, the maritime route is designed to bolster the amount of aid getting into the Gaza Strip, but it is not considered a substitute for far cheaper land-based deliveries that aid agencies say are much more sustainable. The boatloads of aid will be deposited at a port facility built by the Israelis just southwest of Gaza City and then distributed by aid groups.
US troops will not set foot in Gaza, American officials insist, though they acknowledge the danger of operating near the war zone.
Heavy fighting between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants on the outskirts of Rafah has displaced some 600,000 people, a quarter of Gaza’s population, UN officials say. Another 100,000 civilians have fled parts of northern Gaza now that the Israeli military has restarted combat operations there.
Pentagon officials said the fighting in Gaza wasn’t threatening the new shoreline aid distribution area, but they have made it clear that security conditions will be monitored closely and could prompt a shutdown of the maritime route, even just temporarily. Already, the site has been targeted by mortar fire during its construction and Hamas has threatened to target any foreign forces who “occupy” the Gaza Strip.
The “protection of US forces participating is a top priority. And as such, in the last several weeks, the United States and Israel have developed an integrated security plan to protect all the personnel who are working,” said Navy Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, a deputy commander at the US military’s Central Command. “We are confident in the ability of this security arrangement to protect those involved.”
Israeli forces will be in charge of security on the shore, but there are also two US Navy warships near the area in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, the USS Arleigh Burke and the USS Paul Ignatius. Both ships are destroyers equipped with a wide range of weapons and capabilities to protect American troops off shore and allies on the beach.
Aid agencies say they are running out of food in southern Gaza and fuel is dwindling, which will force hospitals to shut down critical operations and halt truck deliveries of aid. The United Nations and other agencies have warned for weeks that an Israel assault on Rafah, which is on the border with Egypt near the main aid entry points, would cripple humanitarian operations and cause a disastrous surge in civilian casualties.
More than 1.4 million Palestinians — half of Gaza’s population — have been sheltering in Rafah, most after fleeing Israel’s offensives elsewhere.
The first cargo ship loaded with 475 pallets of food left Cyprus last week to rendezvous with a US military ship, the Roy P. Benavidez, which is off the coast of Gaza. The pallets of aid on the MV Sagamore were moved onto the Benavidez. The Pentagon said moving the aid between ships was an effort to be ready so it could flow quickly once the pier and the causeway were installed.
The installation of the pier several miles (kilometers) off the coast and of the causeway, which is now anchored to the beach, was delayed for nearly two weeks because of bad weather and high seas. The sea conditions made it too dangerous for US and Israeli troops to secure the causeway to the shore and do other final assembly work, US officials said.
According to a defense official, the Sagamore’s initial shipment was estimated to provide enough to feed 11,000 people for one month. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details not yet made public.
Military leaders have said the deliveries of aid will begin slowly to ensure the system works. They will start with about 90 truckloads of aid a day through the sea route, and that number will quickly grow to about 150 a day. But aid agencies say that isn’t enough to avert impending famine in Gaza and must be just one part of a broader Israeli effort to open land corridors.
Biden used his State of the Union address on March 7 to order the military to set up a temporary pier off the coast of Gaza, establishing a sea route to deliver food and other aid. Food shipments have been backed up at land crossings amid Israeli restrictions and intensifying fighting.
Under the new sea route, humanitarian aid is dropped off in Cyprus where it will undergo inspection and security checks at Larnaca port. It is then loaded onto ships — mainly commercial vessels — and taken about 200 miles (320 kilometers) to the large floating pier built by the US military off the Gaza coast.
There, the pallets are transferred onto trucks, driven onto smaller Army boats and then shuttled several miles (kilometers) to the floating causeway, which has been anchored onto the beach by the Israeli military. The trucks, which are being driven by personnel from another country, will go down the causeway into a secure area on land where they will drop off the aid and immediately turn around and return to the boats.
Aid groups will collect the supplies for distribution on shore, with the UN working with the US Agency for International Development to set up the logistics hub on the beach.
Sabrina Singh, Pentagon spokeswoman, told reporters that the project will cost at least $320 million, including the transportation of the equipment and pier sections from the United States to the coast of Gaza, as well as the construction and aid delivery operations.
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Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.
What will be the repercussions of Biden’s new China tariffs?
- Biden’s move “may accelerate pressure on the EU to adopt a similarly strong posture in its own China tariff review," say analysts
- Beijing has warned it would “take resolute measures” to defend its interests
WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden unveiled steep tariff hikes on Chinese green tech this week, hitting imports like electric vehicles, chips and solar cells — and adding stress to US-China ties.
But despite targeting $18 billion in imports across new and already targeted sectors, analysts do not expect a major economic impact, assuming Beijing does not retaliate significantly.
So what will be the repercussions of his moves?
Biden’s EV, semiconductor and battery tariffs “will not have a noticeable impact on US inflation or GDP,” said economist Ryan Sweet at Oxford Economics.
There were already levies on Chinese EVs, causing automakers to avoid the US market — though the new increase takes the tariff level from 25 percent to 100 percent.
“Last year, China exported around $400 million in battery EVs to the US while the European Union exported nearly $7.5 billion to the US,” Sweet said.
Oxford’s model assumes China does not retaliate significantly, given the current weaknesses seen in the world’s second largest economy, he said.
Tianlei Huang, research fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, believes tariffs could hurt some Chinese companies’ sales and profitability.
But “the direct impact of those tariff hikes is actually quite limited,” he told a virtual event. “It’s more of a signal.”
More restrictive trade policies can cause low-carbon technologies to be less competitive against rivals like combustion engine vehicles, according to research from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
But research scenarios found that “rising trade frictions didn’t overcome the still-falling costs of clean energy,” said Joseph Majkut, director of the energy security and climate change program at the think tank.
US policies like the Inflation Reduction Act, which puts funding toward supporting the green transition, will still support the creation of domestic content too, he added.
China warns of retalization
Beijing has warned it would “take resolute measures” to defend its interests.
Policymakers could target industries in US swing states to impact Biden’s election chances, or opt for a symbolic retaliation, the Trivium China policy analysis group said in a newsletter.
China’s response, or lack thereof, will be telling in terms of how officials plan to address acts they deem as “economic suppression” moving forward, Trivium added.
“The challenge for the Chinese is, how do they do it in a way that doesn’t freak out foreign businesses?” said Bill Bishop, who publishes the Sinocism newsletter.
With Beijing previously announcing export controls on two rare metals essential for the manufacture of semiconductors, action on critical minerals remains possible, he said.
Beijing-based economist Mei Xinyu expects the response to be targeted, and analysts generally do not expect tit-for-tat actions.
China does not import American EVs while “Beijing and Shanghai have been very supportive of the one major US EV player, Tesla, in the China market,” said Paul Triolo, partner for China at Albright Stonebridge Group.
European tariffs
Biden’s move “may accelerate pressure on the EU to adopt a similarly strong posture in its own China tariff review, which is forthcoming,” said CSIS senior fellow Emily Benson.
The European Union launched an inquiry into Chinese electric car subsidies last year, fearing a threat to Europe’s auto industry. This could culminate in a tariff hike from the current 10 percent.
For now, the leaders of Germany and Sweden have expressed reservations about new European tariffs on Chinese EVs.
But if multiple major developed economies are on board with a tariff approach, China will likely be concerned from both an economic and propaganda standpoint, Bishop told AFP.
US tariffs may also “force Brussels’ hand” as it could divert trade to Europe, said Atlantic Council senior fellow Joseph Webster in an analysis.
“Brussels will have to act quickly, either to put its own tariffs in place or to accept a flood of Chinese-made products,” Webster added.
Analysts said the latest tariffs probably didn’t come as a surprise to China, given the signals from US officials ahead of the announcement.
But Bishop noted that the underlying problems between Washington and Beijing run deep — and that while both sides are talking again, their behaviors do not appear to have changed.
“These new actions just chip away at that very, very thin facade of stability,” he said.
Slovak PM shooting suspect named as 71-year-old writer; aides say Fico now out of danger
- The assassination attempt happened while Fico visited the central Slovak town of Handlova
- Slovak media say the suspect is the founder of the DUHA (Rainbow) Literary Club and was from the town of Levice
- The attack comes as political campaigning heats up three weeks ahead of Europe-wide elections to choose lawmakers for the European Parliament
BRATISLAVA: A suspect detained for shooting Slovakia Prime Minister Robert Fico is a 71-year-old writer from the center of the European nation, the interior minister said Wednesday, after media identified the man.
“I think I can confirm this, yes,” Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok told reporters when asked about reports identifying the man detained at the scene of the shooting in the town of Handlova.
A grey haired suspect was seen being handcuffed on the ground just after Fico was shot several times after a government meeting in Handlova.
The populist prime minister was shot multiple times and gravely wounded Wednesday, but his deputy prime minister said he believed Fico would survive.
The prime minister had been greeting supporters at an event when the attempted assassination took place, shocking the small country and reverberating across Europe weeks before an election.
“I guess in the end he will survive,” Tomas Taraba told the BBC, adding: “He’s not in a life threatening situation at this moment.”
Doctors fought for Fico’s life several hours after the pro-Russian leader, 59, was hit in the abdomen, Defense Minister Robert Kalina told reporters at the hospital where Fico was being treated.”
Five shots were fired outside a cultural center in the town of Handlova, nearly 140 kilometers (85 miles) northeast of the capital, government officials said. Fico was shot while attending a meeting of his government in the town of 16,000 that was once a center of coal mining.
A suspect was in custody, and an initial investigation found “a clear political motivation” behind the assassination attempt, Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok said as he briefed reporters alongside the defense minister.
Media reports said the suspect was a founder of the DUHA (Rainbow) Literary Club and was from the town of Levice.
The reports, which also named him, said he has written three poetry collections and is a member of the official Association of Slovak Writers.
The association confirmed on Facebook that the man had been a member since 2015, adding that if his identity as the suspected shooter was confirmed “the membership of this despicable person will be immediately canceled.”
The suspect’s son told Slovak news site aktuality.sk that he had “absolutely no idea what father was thinking, what he was planning, why it happened.”
He said his father was a legally registered gun owner.
When asked if he felt any hatred toward Fico, the son said: “I’ll tell you this: he didn’t vote for him. That’s all I can say about it.”
Vlasta Kollarova, head of a local library in the man’s hometown told Dennik N daily: “He was rebellious when he was young, but not aggressive.”
Several political statements by the man, who AFP has chosen not to name, could be found on social media.
“The world is full of violence and weapons. People seem to be going crazy,” he said in a video eight years ago posted online.
In the video, he also spoke about concern over immigration and “hatred and extremism” and said European governments “have no alternative to this chaos.”
He also said in the video that he had founded a “Movement Against Violence” in Levice.
The movement, which also has its Facebook page, defines itself as “an emerging political party whose goal is to prevent the spread of violence in society. To prevent war in Europe and the spread of hatred.”
Divisive figure
Fico has long been a divisive figure in Slovakia and beyond, but his return to power last year on a pro-Russian, anti-American message led to even greater worries among fellow European Union members that he would lead his country further from the Western mainstream.
Kicking off his fourth term as prime minister, his government halted arms deliveries to Ukraine, and critics worry that he will lead Slovakia — a nation of 5.4 million that belongs to NATO — to abandon its pro-Western course and follow in the footsteps of Hungary under populist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
Thousands have repeatedly rallied in the capital and across Slovakia to protest Fico’s policies.
A message posted to Fico’s Facebook account said he was taken to a hospital in Banská Bystrica, 29 kilometers (17 miles) from Handlova, because it would take too long to get to the capital, Bratislava.
The attack comes as political campaigning heats up three weeks ahead of Europe-wide elections to choose lawmakers for the European Parliament. Concern is mounting that populist and nationalists similar to Fico could make gains in the 27-member bloc.
But politics as usual were put aside as the nation faced the shock of the attempt on Fico’s life.
“A physical attack on the prime minister is, first of all, an attack on a person, but it is also an attack on democracy,” outgoing President Zuzana Caputova, a political rival of Fico, said in a televised statement. “Any violence is unacceptable. The hateful rhetoric we’ve been witnessing in society leads to hateful actions. Please, let’s stop it.”
President-elect Peter Pellegrini, an ally of Fico, called the shooting “an unprecedented threat to Slovak democracy. If we express other political opinions with pistols in squares, and not in polling stations, we are jeopardizing everything that we have built together over 31 years of Slovak sovereignty.”
The recent elections that brought Fico and his allies to power have underlined deep social divisions, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, Slovakia’s neighbor to the east.
Gábor Czímer, a political journalist at Slovakian news outlet Ujszo.com, said Fico’s return to power had uncovered signs that “Slovak society is strongly split into two camps” — one that is friendly toward Russia and another that pushes for stronger connections with the EU and the West.
“At the same time, I couldn’t imagine that it would lead to physical violence,” Czímer said.
Estok, the Slovak interior minister, told reporters outside the hospital that the country was “on the edge of a civil war” from the political tension.
“Such hateful comments are being made on social networks today, so please, let’s stop this immediately,” he said.
US President Joe Biden said he was alarmed by the assassination attempt. “We condemn this horrific act of violence,” he said in a statement.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg posted on the social media platform X that he was “shocked and appalled” by the attempt on Fico’s life. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called it a “vile attack.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced the violence against a neighboring country’s head of government.
“Every effort should be made to ensure that violence does not become the norm in any country, form or sphere,” he said.
Slovakia’s Parliament was adjourned until further notice. The major opposition parties, Progressive Slovakia and Freedom and Solidarity, canceled a planned protest against a controversial government plan to overhaul public broadcasting that they say would give the government full control of public radio and television.
Progressive Slovakia leader Michal Simecka called on all politicians “to refrain from any expressions and steps which could contribute to further increasing the tension.”
Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala wished the premier a swift recovery. “We cannot tolerate violence, there’s no place for it in society.”
The Czech Republic and Slovakia formed Czechoslovakia until 1992.
Xi, Putin hail ties as ‘stabilising’ force in chaotic world
- It is Putin’s first trip abroad since his March re-election and the second in just over six months to China
- Xi Jinping told his “old friend” Vladimir Putin that China-Russia relations were “conducive to peace”
BEIJING: Leaders Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin framed their nations’ ties as a stabilising force in a chaotic world as they met Thursday in Beijing, where the Russian president is seeking greater Chinese support for his war effort in Ukraine and isolated economy.
It is Putin’s first trip abroad since his March re-election and the second in just over six months to China, an economic lifeline for Russia after the West hit it with unprecedented sanctions over its military offensive in Ukraine.
Putin was greeted by Xi at a grand welcoming ceremony outside Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, footage by state broadcaster CCTV showed.
The national anthems of both countries and martial tunes played as the two leaders met, kicking off a two-day visit by Putin that is expected to see the countries deepen a relationship they have declared has “no limits.”
In a meeting, Xi then told his “old friend” Putin that China-Russia relations were “conducive to peace,” according to a readout from Beijing’s foreign ministry.
“China is ready to work with Russia to... uphold fairness and justice in the world,” Xi added.
“The China-Russia relationship today is hard-earned, and the two sides need to cherish and nurture it.”
Putin, in turn, told Xi the two countries’ relations were “stabilising factors in the international arena.”
“Relations between Russia and China are not opportunistic and not directed against anyone,” Putin said, according to a Kremlin readout.
“Together, we uphold the principles of justice and a democratic world order that reflects multipolar realities and is based on international law,” he added.
Major offensive on Ukraine
The Russian leader’s arrival came hours after he hailed his country’s troops for advancing on “all fronts” on the battlefield in Ukraine, following a major new ground assault.
Xi, who returned last week from a three-nation tour of Europe, has rebuffed Western criticism of his country’s ties with Moscow, enjoying cheap Russian energy imports and access to vast natural resources, including steady gas shipments via the Power of Siberia pipeline.
“This is Putin’s first trip after his inauguration, and it is therefore intended to show that Sino-Russian relations are moving up another level,” independent Russian political analyst Konstantin Kalachev told AFP.
“Not to mention the visibly sincere personal friendship between the two leaders.”
But their economic partnership has come under close scrutiny from the West in recent months.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who met Xi in Beijing last month, warned China’s support for Russia’s “brutal war of aggression” in Ukraine had helped Russia ramp up production of rockets, drones and tanks — while stopping short of direct arms exports.
China claims to be a neutral party in the Ukraine conflict, which it has never condemned and in which it has sought to frame itself as a mediator.
Putin, in an interview published in Xinhua ahead of his visit, hailed Beijing’s “genuine desire” to help resolve the Ukraine crisis.
Russia-China growing partnership
China-Russia trade has boomed since the Ukraine invasion and hit $240 billion in 2023, according to Chinese customs figures.
But after Washington vowed to go after financial institutions that facilitate Moscow, Chinese exports to Russia dipped during March and April, down from a surge early in the year.
An executive order by President Joe Biden in December permits secondary sanctions on foreign banks that deal with Russia’s war machine, allowing the US Treasury to cut them out of the dollar-led global financial system.
That, coupled with recent efforts to rebuild fractured ties with the United States, may make Beijing reluctant to openly push more cooperation with Russia — despite what Moscow may want, analysts said.
Eight people from both countries involved in cross-border trade told AFP in recent days that several Chinese banks have halted or slowed transactions with Russian clients.
Putin’s post-election trip to Beijing echoes Xi’s own visit to Russia after his re-anointing as leader last year.
The two leaders are set to sign a joint declaration following the talks, the Kremlin said, and attend an evening marking 75 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
Putin will also meet Premier Li Qiang — China’s number two official — and travel to the northeastern city of Harbin for a trade and investment expo.
South Africa seeks halt to Israel’s Rafah offensive at World Court
- The hearings on May 16 and 17 will only focus on issuing emergency measures, to keep the dispute from escalating
THE HAGUE: South Africa will ask the top UN court on Thursday to order a halt to the Rafah offensive as part of its case in The Hague accusing Israel of genocide in the Gaza Strip.
The hearings at the International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, come after South Africa last week asked for additional emergency measures to protect Rafah, a southern Gaza city where more than a million Palestinians have been sheltering.
It also asked the court to order Israel to allow unimpeded access to Gaza for UN officials, organizations providing humanitarian aid, and journalists and investigators. It added that Israel has so far ignored and violated earlier court orders.
On Thursday, South Africa will present its latest intervention seeking emergency measures starting at 3 p.m.(1300 GMT).
Israel, which has denounced South Africa’s claim that it is violating the 1949 Genocide Convention as baseless, will respond on Friday. In previous filings it stressed it had stepped up efforts to get humanitarian aid into Gaza as the ICJ had ordered.
Gilad Erdan, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations told Army Radio on Wednesday the short notice the court gave for the hearings did not allow sufficient legal preparation, adding that was “a telling sign.”
The Israel-Hamas war has killed nearly 35,000 people in Gaza, according to health authorities there. About 1,200 people were killed in Israel and 253 taken hostage on Oct. 7 when Hamas launched the attack that started the war, according Israeli tallies.
South Africa accuses Israel of acts of genocide against Palestinians. In January, the court ordered Israel to ensure its troops commit no genocidal acts against Palestinians in Gaza, allow in more humanitarian aid and preserve any evidence of violations.
The hearings on May 16 and 17 will only focus on issuing emergency measures, to keep the dispute from escalating. It will likely take years before the court can rule on the merits of the case.
The ICJ’s rulings and orders are binding and without appeal. While the court has no way to enforce them, an order against a country could hurt its international reputation and set legal precedent.
