The World Court ordered Israel to prevent acts of genocide against the Palestinians and do more to help civilians, although it stopped short of ordering a ceasefire as requested by the plaintiff South Africa.   While the ruling denied Palestinian hopes of a binding order to halt the war in Gaza, it also represented a legal setback for Israel, which had hoped to throw out a case brought under the genocide convention established in the ashes of the Holocaust.   The International Court of Justice found that there was a case to be heard about whether Palestinian rights were being denied in a war it said was causing grievous humanitarian harm. It also called for Palestinian armed groups to release hostages captured in the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel that precipitated the conflict.   The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said the decision was a welcome reminder “no state is above the law.” Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters it would contribute to “isolating the occupation and exposing...