'Gaza genocide': Nicaragua threatens legal action against 4 Western nations

Nicaragua has threatened to drag four Western nations to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), saying that their weapons and material supplies were enabling the Israeli genocide in the besieged Palestinian enclave of Gaza.

The warning follows the top UN court’s interim ruling, which said it is "plausible" that Israel was carrying out genocide in Gaza and ordered the country to take action to prevent it.

Nicaragua said it has informed the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, and Canada that it is prepared to take their governments to the ICJ in a bid to end what it sees as their complicity in the onslaught in Gaza.

Managua alleges their arms and material supplies to Israel are fueling the onslaught that has killed more than 27,500 Palestinians - largely women and children – since October 7, which came after Hamas' unprecedented cross-border operation left 1,200 Israelis dead.

In recent days, Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega – who first came to power in the 1970s after overthrowing the US-backed Anastasio Somoza Debayle – brought the issue to light in a bid to make the countries adhere to what he said was "international law".

Ortega touched on the need to hold the Western nations accountable over what he has described as "flagrant and systematic violations”.

His leftist government is now urging Western nations to immediately cease the supply of arms and associated materials to Israel, which it said could have been used to enable or commit violations against the Genocide convention, according to a statement released in both English and Spanish.

Managua said the countries have an "obligation" to prevent genocide from taking place, describing the "plausibility" of genocide as now being "beyond doubt and dispute".

It said that it wishes the Western nations to be held "responsible" under international law for what it described as "gross and systematic violations to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, international humanitarian law and customary law, including the law of occupation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories".

In the statement, Managua said it had urged the UK, German, Dutch and Canadian governments to "immediately halt the supply of arms, ammunitions, technology and/or components to Israel as it is plausible they might have been used to facilitate or commit violations of the Genocide Convention.”

It said the allegation violations included but were not limited to acts of “genocide, attempted genocide, complicity in genocide and conspiracy to commit genocide."

Ortega's government also heavily criticised the slashing of funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) by several Western nations, describing it as contributing to the plight of the Palestinians.

It followed Israel's claims that 12 of the agency's 13,000 staff were involved in the October 7 attacks by Hamas.

However, Nicaragua described the UK, Canada, Netherlands and Canada's actions as disregarding "their obligations" and "actively" enabling "violations" of international law. It went on to describe the funding cuts as contributing towards the "collective punishment of the Palestinians."

It said the "objective" of the measures against UNRWA forces Palestinians to leave the Occupied Palestinian Territories and hinders them from being able to exercise "their right to self-determination."

Nicaragua has said it has provided written notice to the four Western governments. It insists it will take "all measures it considers appropriate" in line with international law, including recourse to the International Court of Justice.

Following October 7, several Latin American countries have taken diplomatic measures against Israel's onslaught on Gaza.

In recent months, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia and Honduras recalled their ambassadors from Israel, while Colombia's President Gustavo Petro has publicly pushed for peace in Gaza.

He called the interim ICJ ruling a "triumph of humanity" and insisted that "Israel must prevent genocide."