 In a much awaited development, the International Court of Justice delivered its ruling on South Africa's case against Israel. Now, the case was on violations of the genocide convention. While the court stopped short of calling for a ceasefire, which South Africa's demand, it did make some vital interventions. Among other measures, it asked Israel to take all steps to prevent acts within the scope of the genocide convention. Also asked Israel to report back in a month. The court also cited the brutal insensitive statements by Israeli officials, including its president and defense minister. We go to Abdul to get a sense of the ruling and what lies ahead. Abdul, thank you so much for joining us. A very momentous verdict and one which busts a lot of Israel's claims about what has been happening over the past three, three and a half months. So maybe for the benefit of our viewers, could you maybe take us through what are the key points in this ruling by the International Court of Justice? Well Prashant, the International Court of Justice in its interim verdict on Friday in the case against Israel committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza brought by South Africa basically rules that it has a jurisdiction to basically give a verdict on the issue which basically resolves the technical aspect of the case, which was earlier made out by certain section of countries and the people that ICJ does not have, whether ICJ has a jurisdiction over this particular allegation, the case or not. So that basically that is settled now. Second, it issues six set of instructions to Israel, which are related to primarily, of course, provide greater humanitarian assistance to the people in Gaza. It means what Israel has been doing so far in terms of preventing the inflow of humanitarian aid inside the territory is basically not any more not acceptable. That is one of course, one set of instructions. The second set of instructions are basically related to how Israel has to take action to prevent any act which basically can fall in the category of genocide. Categorically asks Israel to basically take action against all those people, including the high state officials, including the defense minister and so on and so forth, though it does not name the minister explicitly, but of course, it talks about all those people who have been inciting genocidal acts against Palestinians in Gaza. There must be some action taken by Israelis. That is another. The third, of course, it also talks about asks Israel to keep a record of all those violations of genocide convention and the laws against genocide in its whatever in during its war inside Gaza. And present a report to the court within a month about the compliance of all those instructions which is which I suggest issued. Of course, the court stops short of kind of asking Israel to stop the war or asking Israel to kind of to cease fire inside Gaza. But nevertheless, the verdict basically kind of clearly paves the way for a final verdict, which of course may take some time to come and basically held Israel accountable for its acts inside against Palestinians inside Gaza. In this context, now, what lies ahead? What is the procedure that, you know, what are the procedural aspects ahead? And, you know, what does this mean for the war? Well, Prashant, since the ICJ has ruled that it has a jurisdiction over the case, and therefore, there will be proper hearing from now onwards till the final verdict is given. This may take years to come. As far as the fate of the interim verdict is concerned, of course, it is very difficult to say at this moment, given the record which Israel has and given the record which most of the other countries which have powerful countries backing them or they themselves are powerful. It is not very optimistic. The hope optimistic, the situation is not very optimistic. The only thing is, if you see, there had been verdict in the past against a particular state, including Israel then it come. But in most of those cases, the countries concerned have not have chosen to not implement the verdict. And since they have been powerful countries, there is no even serious attempt made to enforce those verdicts. And Israel has already said that no matter what, whatever is the verdict, they are not going to stop their war inside Gaza. And in fact, after the verdict came, Israel basically has completely rejected even the interim verdict. One thing more which needs to be taken into consideration when we talk about ICG's verdict, the fate of the ICG verdict, it totally depends on how the countries which are close to Israel react to it. In fact, if you see the reaction made by the United States, which in fact is continues to peddle the position which it took at the time when the case was filed against Israel by South Africa that it is completely baseless case and has no merit and so on and so forth. The same thing was similar things were repeated by the US on the day of the verdict, which basically makes us kind of makes us skeptical about the future of the entire of this verdict. So therefore, though the final verdict may take years to come, even the interim verdict may not be implemented by Israelis given their position so far. And finally, Abdul, if you could take us through what have been the kind of responses from around the globe, both from countries as well as progressive sections, progressive leaders, what have been the kind of responses that you've seen? Well, Prashant, most of the progressive sections across the world have welcomed the ICG's interim ruling and hoped that Israel will implement all the instructions given by the court, including which is not given by the court. And of course, including immediate ceasefire. Some of the progressive sections, of course, have expressed reservations or you can say have expressed disappointment that the International Court of Justice has not asked for immediate ceasefire. Because if there is no ceasefire, the number of Palestinians which are killed every day will keep on continuing. There are already 26,000 plus Palestinians who have been killed in the Israeli war. And if there is no ceasefire and by that, and since the period between the interim judgment and the final judgment may be huge, it means that more and more Palestinians will be killed in the future. And therefore, there is a need for immediate ceasefire. So that part, of course, has been disappointing for most of the progressive sections. As far as the third world countries and the global south overall is concerned, of course, most of them have welcomed the verdict and asked Israel to implement the verdict. And in fact, again, kind of impose some kind of implement some kind of ceasefire. There is no need to continue the war. There has been no need for this war and this war should end as soon as possible. Most of the countries have said South Africa has expressed happiness, of course, that their stand has been validated. And all those countries who had questioned South Africa's motives are basically now should basically know that what South Africa has done had had married. Since the court has said that they have jurisdiction to rule over it. As far as the West is concerned, of course, there are different kinds of reactions coming. European Union has welcomed the verdict and asked Israel to implement it. But some of the constituents of the European Union have not expressed similar opinions. In fact, they continue to back the Israeli argument and it seems that they are in no hurry to ask Israel to implement some kind of ceasefire. The stand of the United States in particular remains the same as it was when the case was filed by South Africa that this case is baseless and therefore it basically has also in a way kind of has not expressed any, had expressed reservation about the verdict which came out of ICJ on Friday. So US and some of the Western countries continue to support the Israeli war and continue to basically defy all the claims of Israeli, Israel coming to the genocide inside occupied Palestinian territories including in Gaza. But rest of the world and most of the progress sections have hope that Israel will implement the verdict and also kind of impose some kind of ceasefire as early as possible. Thanks so much for talking to us, Abdul. The 154th session of the World Health Organization's Executive Board began on January 22nd and concludes on January 27th. This is a significant meeting as the World Health Assembly said to be held in May and key issues that will come up then are being discussed now. Among them are the Pandemic Treaty which we have talked about often on this show. The discussions around various violations and the attacks on health workers in Palestine also took place. To understand more about this we go to Anna. Anna, thank you for joining us. So the Executive Board meeting ahead of a very vital WHA in May. So could you maybe take us through what were the agenda items for the EB this time? What are the key topics that were being discussed? Interestingly, one of the agenda points that sparked most interest during the beginning of the Executive Board was a point that was actually not on the agenda. So that was the Pandemic Treaty. And of course we know that WHO members are now closing towards the deadline that they set to themselves for finalizing the draft of a Pandemic Treaty by May this year when the World Health Assembly will meet in Geneva. So we also know that the work on the treaty began when the world was going through the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. And then there were some WHO members who were really eager to translate what they were seeing on the field during the pandemic into a new formal WHO mechanism. So we know that two years since then or so this turned out to be a very different thing for different members. We do know as we spoke here before that the Global South members were quite eager to develop a mechanism that essentially provides more basis for work done on the basis of solidarity of international cooperation. On the other hand, we do know that the Global North countries still seem to put on protecting the interests of themselves and of the big pharma companies that they are hosting. So all of this has kind of contributed to a stall or difficulties in the conversation around the Pandemic Treaty. And now that May is getting closer, people inside the WHO are getting a bit nervous about whether the deadline in May will be met. So this is something that has been voiced during the first day of the executive board already. Of course, you know, even if the Pandemic Treaty does not happen, we do know that what probably will lead to a conclusion are the negotiations around the international health regulations, which are an existing mechanism that is very important for the navigation of WHO and in member states in cases of extraordinary health events, if we want to call them that. So the Pandemic Treaty as such was not on the agenda. What is on the agenda is of course universal health coverage, a concept that also we have spoken here on a couple of occasions. And that seems to continue, although the WHO secretariat now has compiled a report which essentially shows that the concept is failing. It's not doing what it's supposed to do and that is increase access to health care and of course offer financial protection to people. Universal health coverage is going to be a big topic, but so is climate change. So climate change is something that's now being introduced into several WHO documents in different ways. And while this is a very important breakthrough, what we are also seeing is that the introduction of climate change does not always correspond to having practical aims or even practical ideas of how the existing budget and resources of the WHO and its members will support the work that needs to be done on climate change and health. And then of course we have something that's been very important for the past years, not only because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but also because of the growing number of wars and armed conflicts that are happening. And that's WHO's work in health emergencies. So all of these things are also going to be discussed in the light of course of the finances of the resources made available to WHO for its work. We did speak on previous occasions about the reforms or the changes, maybe it's better to call them changes that member states and the WHO are trying to find in order to make the WHO more flexible in its work in order to make sure that the core programs are financed well and that the funding that's available can be used in different ways that the WHO secretariat feels is necessary to do. So we do know that in 2023 we had some talk about changes which went into the increase of flexible funding through the SS contributions, which are contributions that member states have to pay to the WHO. But in addition to that, we are also seeing another round of additional financing mechanisms that still rely on what the problems were in the first place and that's drawing in more support from philanthropic capitalists, from private public alliances such as GAVI, which essentially try and shape WHO's priority and drive its work in one way or another independently of what the proper members, so the countries of the world, try to see the WHO doing and want to see the WHO doing. Right, of course also, Palestine on the minds of everybody, so were there discussions also on the attack on health workers and health facilities and the health infrastructure of the people of Gaza? When it comes to the health situation in Palestine and particularly Gaza, the executive board will follow up upon the special session that it held in late 2023. And so at the end of that special sessions, the board members requested the director general of the WHO to compile a report on what is happening in Gaza. So that's one of the documents that the representatives will have in front of themselves during this session of the executive board. And of course, you know, this document documents or talks about the things that the WHO has been warning all over all the time since the latest attacks on Gaza started. So they report on the immense damage that was caused in those attacks to Palestinian health infrastructure. They also talk about the ways that the Israeli occupying forces target and kill health workers. So the WHO continues to be present in Gaza. The teams do try and get in and go on humanitarian and health missions in order to deliver fuel to hospitals which need them for the generators in order to deliver medical materials and so on. But of course, you know, the reports from those teams have been published on the WHO's communication channels all the time. And we are hearing repeatedly that even the teams like them, so UN teams are of course experiencing problems because they are not getting the security assurances by the Israeli to get in. They're not allowed to go in certain parts of Gaza. And the delivery of fuel in particular is often delayed because of that. So just recently a WHO mission finished another visit to Al-Shifa hospital. It took them 10 days or more to get to Al-Shifa twice. And of course, you know, that has severe implications on how the hospital is supposed to work and how it's supposed to get operations back going after it was forced to essentially shut down at one point. And so in this regard, the WHO secretariat of course has been very vocal about the ceasefire for a very long time. We've heard the calls coming from the teams who are there in the occupied Palestinian territories who have essentially the experience from the ground. But of course, we have also heard those calls by the director general Tedros himself. So it's not surprising to see all of these things reflected in the report which is in front of the executive board. Now what will be interesting to see is how the board members will react because we know that among those serving on the executive board of the WHO right now are also representatives from countries that have expressed support towards Israel even as Israel has engaged in very clear genocidal acts and attacks against healthcare in Gaza. Thank you so much, Ana. That's all we have in today's daily debrief. We'll be back with a fresh episode on Monday. In the meanwhile, do visit our website peoplesdispatch.org. Follow us on all the social media platforms. And if you're watching this on YouTube, please hit that subscribe button.