South Africa has filed an application at the International Court of Justice to begin proceedings over allegations of genocide against Israel for its war against Hamas in Gaza, the court said on Friday. <\/p>\n
South Africa accuses Israel of being \u201cin violation of its obligations under the Genocide Convention\u201d in its application, and argues that \u201cacts and omissions by Israel \u2026 are genocidal in character, as they are committed with the requisite specific intent \u2026 to destroy Palestinians in Gaza,\u201d according to the ICJ. <\/p>\n
Over 21,507 people have been killed in Gaza since October 7, according to the enclave\u2019s Hamas-controlled Health Ministry. Among the dead are at least\u00a0308 people who were sheltering in\u00a0United Nations shelters, per the United\u00a0Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees. <\/p>\n
Israel has rejected South Africa\u2019s claims and application to the world court, saying through its Ministry of Foreign Affairs that South Africa \u201cis calling for the destruction of the State of Israel, and that its \u201cclaim lacks both a factual and a legal basis.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cIsrael is committed to international law and acts in accordance with it, and directs its military efforts only against the Hamas terrorist organization and the other terrorist organizations cooperating with Hamas,\u201d its statement said, adding that it has made \u201cevery effort to limit harm to the non-involved and to allow humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip.\u201d <\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s aerial bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza, in response to Hamas\u2019 deadly terror attacks and kidnapping rampage on October 7, have caused widespread devastation in the densely-inhabited coastal strip, prompting outcry from aid groups and the international community. <\/p>\n
US President Joe Biden said earlier this month that that Israel is engaged in \u201cindiscriminate bombing\u201d in Gaza. US intelligence assessment suggests that nearly half of the air-to-ground munitions that Israel has used in Gaza\u00a0in\u00a0its\u00a0war with Hamas have been unguided, otherwise known as \u201cdumb bombs.\u201d Unguided munitions are\u00a0typically\u00a0less precise and can pose a greater threat to civilians. <\/p>\n
\u201cSouth Africa is gravely concerned with the plight of civilians caught in the present Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip due to the indiscriminate use of force and forcible removal of inhabitants,\u201d a statement released by South Africa\u2019s Department of International Relations and Cooperation said on Friday. <\/p>\n
\u201cFurthermore, there are ongoing reports of international crimes, such as crimes against humanity and war crimes, being committed as well as reports that acts meeting the threshold of genocide or related crimes as defined in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, have been and may still be committed in the context of the ongoing massacres in Gaza,\u201d it says. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs a State Party to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, South Africa is under a treaty obligation to prevent genocide from occurring.\u201d <\/p>\n
South Africa and Israel are both parties to the Genocide Convention, according to the ICJ, which is also known as the World Court and is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations. <\/p>\n\n
South Africa has filed an application at the International Court of Justice to begin proceedings over allegations of genocide against Israel for its war against Hamas in Gaza, the court said on Friday. South Africa accuses Israel of being \u201cin violation of its obligations under the Genocide Convention\u201d in its application, and argues that \u201cacts <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":13389,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13388","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}