Israel didn’t expect the cost of this war to hit back, but the financial ground beneath it just shifted and matters are escalating. Right, so they tell you genocide is complicated. They tell you it’s tragic, regrettable, unresolvable, a matter of perspectives, a conflict older than memory. They say this while the paperwork sits in plain sight evidencing all the whys and wherefores though. On 26 January 2024, the International Court of Justice ruled that genocide in Gaza was plausible. Not debated. Not speculated. Plausible. And when that ruling landed, the law changed. A duty switched on. Every state, every public institution, every bank tied into the European system became responsible for what it funded next. The European Investment Bank kept its project pipeline open though. The listings are public. The dates are visible. Nobody hid anything. They didn’t need to. They assumed you would be too overwhelmed to read a database. They assumed you would look away. They always do. The problem this time is: someone didn’t. The Hind Rajab Foundation read the documents. And now the bank is on the record and they are getting dragged to court it seems. And this carries major consequences for Israel and those facilitating their funding. Right, so the ICJ ruled that the charge of genocide in Gaza was plausible, we all know this by now don’t we? The ruling did not conclude the case, that is very much ongoing. But it do something of at least equal weight to my mind. It imposed a legal duty on states to prevent assistance to the acts under investigation. That duty applied immediately. It did not wait for appeals. It did not wait for a final verdict. It didn’t need to. It landed the moment the order was issued. The court’s language was explicit. States must ensure they do not aid or assist a genocide while it is being examined. That duty is not complicated. It is binding, under treaty law that every European state has ratified. The European Investment Bank is the public development bank of the European Union. It is not an ordinary lender. It does not operate on commercial discretion. Its financing decisions are part of the legal fabric of the European bloc. It is owned by the member states. Its commitments are governed by EU law. It publishes its operating framework. It publishes its environmental and social compliance standards. It places human rights compliance as a stated condition of financing. These are eligibility rules for public funds.