The High Court of Justice on Tuesday granted the state a tenth extension to its deadline for responding to an urgent petition by the Gisha human rights organization demanding that the government ensure the provision of a “consistent and extensive supply of urgent humanitarian aid to Palestinian residents of Gaza.”

Although the court granted this extension request, Judge Yosef Elron, who has issued all previous extensions, said that the new deadline for this Thursday was the final one and would not be extended.

Gisha, together with several other human rights groups, first filed their petition on May 18 as an urgent motion to have the court address the severe humanitarian situation in Gaza, a result of some ten weeks during which Israel had prohibited the entry of all aid into the territory, starting March 2.

The government has since eased the blockade on aid entering the territory, but the aid distribution mechanism it has established with the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has seen hundreds of Palestinian civilians killed by Israeli gunfire as they try to obtain the food parcels, according to witnesses and health workers.

The UN has also reported that severe malnutrition is spreading in the territory, while a Hamas health official said on Tuesday that 20 people had died from starvation over the last 48 hours, although those figures cannot be independently verified.

Gisha and the other organizations that petitioned the court have repeatedly underlined the deteriorating situation over the last two months in response to the state’s numerous requests for deadline extensions for filing its response to the petition.

“The humanitarian situation in the Strip is swiftly deteriorating as a direct result of the state’s use of humanitarian aid as a weapon, while stymieing the international aid system, and the state’s attempt to replace it [international aid] with a private and military mechanism which does not comply with any basic humanitarian principle and makes civilians chose between starving to death or being shot,” Gisha attorney Osnat Cohen-Lifshitz said in response to the state’s latest request for an extension.

Cohen-Lifshitz accused Israel of “pursuing a policy of starvation, forced displacement, and ethnic cleansing,” and accused the court of “cooperating with the state by allowing it not to provide information or defend its positions, thus evading judicial review and the public’s right to know.”

Elron is the lone judge presiding over the initial legal proceedings and has approved all of the state’s extension requests.

Gisha requested at the end of June and again last week that Elron expand the panel of judges to three when deciding on the extension requests due to the severe and deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza, but the judge rejected that request.

Prof. Eliav Lieblich, an expert in international law at Tel Aviv University, pointed out that the humanitarian aid petition was not the only case in which the High Court has given the state numerous extensions in urgent petitions that deal with human rights during the war.

“In this [Gaza humanitarian aid] case the court said this was the last extension, but in previous humanitarian aid petitions, we saw that even after the state submitted its response, the proceedings were excruciatingly long,” said Lieblich.

One other case in which the High Court has granted multiple extensions is a petition regarding Red Cross visits to Palestinian prisoners.

The government banned such visits, which were crucial for guaranteeing prisoners’ basic rights were being preserved, after the October 7, 2023 atrocities committed by Hamas.

According to the Hamoked organization, which petitioned the High Court against the ban on Red Cross visits, the state has received 16 extensions from the court to file its response over nearly 18 months since the petition was first filed.

Numerous reports and personal testimony have been published about severe abuse and deprivation suffered by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and detention centers since October 7.

“One cannot escape the feeling that the court is unmotivated to deal with these issues in a timely manner, and that this is another example of the weakening of Israel’s judicial system,” said Lieblich.