As Israeli bombs continued to fall on Gaza, Judge Joan Donoghue, president of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), read out the court’s order earlier today that Israel must comply with the United Nations’ Genocide Convention.

The ICJ found it plausible that Israel has contravened the international treaty — officially known as the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide — and, in a sixteen-to-two ruling, ordered Israel to cease its violations, including killing and injuring Palestinians and imposing on them conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction as a people. In two sixteen-to-one rulings, the ICJ also declared that Israel must prohibit the incitement to genocide by top Israeli leaders and allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Notably, the court failed to call for a cease-fire. Nonetheless, speaking outside the court in The Hague, South African foreign minister Naledi Pandor praised the decision. “In exercising the order,” she stated, “there will have to be a cease-fire. Without it the order doesn’t actually work.”