UNITED NATIONS, United States: UN Security Council will meet next week over the decision by the global body’s top court calling for Israel to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza, the council’s presidency announced Friday.
The Wednesday meeting was called for by Algeria, whose ministry of foreign affairs said it would give “binding effect to the pronouncement of the International Court of Justice on the provisional measures imposed on the Israeli occupation.”
The ICJ on Friday said Israel must prevent genocidal acts in its war with Hamas and allow aid into Gaza, but stopped short of calling for an end to the fighting.
The decision “gives the clear message that in order to do all the things that they are asking for, you need a ceasefire for it to happen,” Palestinian ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour said.
“So fasten your seat belts,” he said, hinting that the Arab Group, represented on the council by Algeria, would push for one.
The Security Council, long divided on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, has only agreed to two resolutions since the October 7 Hamas attacks sparked the latest round of fighting.
In December, it demanded aid deliveries “at scale” to Gaza’s besieged population, while Israel’s ally the United States has kept out calls for a ceasefire despite international pressure.
The current fighting started with the unprecedented attack by Hamas that resulted in about 1,140 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized about 250 hostages and Israel says around 132 of them remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 28 dead captives.
Israel has vowed to crush Hamas and launched a military offensive that the health ministry in Gaza says has killed at least 26,083 people, about 70 percent of them women and children.
The ICJ, based in The Hague, while refraining from ordering an immediate halt to the almost four-month-old war, said Israel must do everything to “prevent the commission of all acts within the scope” of the 1948 UN Genocide Convention.
Security Council to meet after UN top court’s Gaza ruling
https://arab.news/puk6a
Security Council to meet after UN top court’s Gaza ruling
- ICJ said on Friday Israel must prevent genocidal acts in its war against Hamas in Gaza
- Israeli air, ground military offensives have killed over 26,000 Palestinians since Oct. 7
Trump invites Colombia’s Petro to White House after earlier threat of military action
- Relations between Trump and Petro have been frosty since the Republican returned to the White House in January 2025
WASHINGTON/BOGOTA: Days after threatening Colombia with military action, US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said arrangements were being made for the country’s President Gustavo Petro to visit the White House, following a call between the two leaders. Trump and Petro said they discussed relations between the two countries in their first call since the US president on Sunday said that a US military operation focused on Colombia’s government “sounds good” to him. That threat followed Trump ordering the US capture of the president of neighboring Venezuela, who was flown to the US to face drug and weapons charges.
“It was a great honor to speak with the President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, who called to explain the situation of drugs and other disagreements that we have had. I appreciated his call and tone, and look forward to meeting him in the near future,” Trump wrote on social media.
Trump added “arrangements are being made” for a meeting in Washington between himself and Petro, Colombia’s first leftist president, but gave no specific date for a meeting.
“We have spoken by phone for the first time since he became president,” Petro told supporters gathered at a rally in Bogota meant to celebrate Colombia’s sovereignty, adding he had requested a restart of dialogue between the two countries.
A source in Petro’s office told Reuters the call was “cordial” and “respectful.”
Relations between Trump and Petro have been frosty since the Republican returned to the White House in January 2025.
Trump has repeatedly accused the administration of Petro, without evidence, of enabling a steady flow of cocaine into the US, imposing sanctions on the Colombian leader in October.
On Sunday Trump referred to Petro as “a sick man, who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States.”
The US in September had revoked Petro’s visa after he joined a pro-Palestinian demonstration in New York following a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly and called on US soldiers to “disobey the orders of Trump.”
Petro, who has been a vocal opponent of Israel’s war in Gaza, had accused Trump of being “complicit in genocide” in Gaza and called for “criminal proceedings” over US missile attacks on suspected drug-running boats in Caribbean waters.
The Trump administration has carried out more than 30 strikes against suspected drug boats since September, in a campaign that has killed at least 110 people.
