South Africa accused Israel of genocide in an unprecedented case at the\u00a0United Nations\u2019 top court, saying the country\u2019s leadership was \u201cintent on destroying the Palestinians in Gaza\u201d and calling for the court to order a halt to Israel\u2019s military campaign in the enclave. <\/p>\n
On the first of two days of hearings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), South Africa on Thursday argued that Israel\u2019s air and ground assaults on Gaza were intended to \u201cbring about the destruction\u201d of its Palestinian population, and that comments made by Israeli leaders signalled their \u201cgenocidal intent.\u201d <\/p>\n
Israel declared war on Hamas after the militant group\u2019s murderous rampage on October 7, when more than 1,200 people were killed and 240 hostages were taken back to Gaza. South Africa condemned Hamas\u2019 attacks but said \u201cnothing\u201d could justify Israel\u2019s response, which has killed more than 23,000 people in Gaza. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe point is not simply that Israel is acting disproportionately. The point is that the prohibition on genocide is an absolute,\u201d said Vaughan Lowe, one of the lawyers representing South Africa. \u201cNothing can ever justify genocide.\u201d <\/p>\n
Israel\u00a0dismissed\u00a0the case as \u201cabsurd blood libel,\u201d and government spokesperson Eylon Levy said it is \u201ctragic that the rainbow nation that prides itself on fighting racism will be fighting pro-bono for the anti-Jewish racists.\u201d <\/p>\n
Israel is scheduled to deliver its response in court on Friday. Israeli President Isaac Herzog said the country would make the case that the war was one of self-defense, and would show that Israel is doing its \u201cutmost\u201d under \u201cextremely complicated circumstances\u201d to avert civilian casualties. <\/p>\n
The ICJ, based in The Hague in the Netherlands, was set up in June 1945 and hears cases brought by states accusing others of violating their UN treaty obligations. South Africa and Israel are signatories to the 1948 Genocide Convention, meaning they are obliged not to commit genocide and to prevent and punish it. <\/p>\n
Experts say it is the first time that the Jewish state is being tried under the Genocide Convention, which was drawn up after World War II in light of the atrocities committed against the Jewish people during the Holocaust. <\/p>\n
Countries are unable to appeal the rulings\u00a0but the ICJ has no way of enforcing them, and other countries who are party to the court have ignored its rulings in the past. <\/p>\n
In an 84-page filing to the ICJ, South Africa argued that Israel is committing genocide by killing Palestinians in Gaza, causing serious mental and bodily harm, forced evacuation, widespread hunger, and by creating conditions \u201ccalculated to bring about their physical destruction.\u201d It also accused Israel of failing to stem incitement to genocide in the public pronouncements of its officials. <\/p>\n
During three hours of oral argument, lawyers representing South Africa asked the ICJ to order a suspension of Israel\u2019s campaign in Gaza to protect the rights of Palestinians in Gaza \u201cfrom imminent and irreparable loss.\u201d <\/p>\n
Such \u201cprovisional measures,\u201d as they are known, function as a kind of restraining order to stop a dispute from escalating while the court considers the full merits of the case, which could take years. For provisional measures the court need only decide if prima facie, or \u201cat first glance,\u201d the acts complained of could fall foul of the genocide convention. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not necessary for the court to come to a final view on the question of whether Israel\u2019s conduct constitutes genocide. It is necessary to establish only whether at least some of the acts alleged are capable of falling within the provisions of the convention,\u201d argued Adila Hassim, one of the lawyers representing South Africa. <\/p>\n
In its opening remarks, South Africa said it \u201cplaces Israel\u2019s genocidal acts and omissions within the broader context of Israel\u2019s 25-year apartheid, 56-year occupation, and 16-year siege imposed on the Gaza Strip.\u201d <\/p>\n
South Africa operated under a system of apartheid from 1948 until the early 1990s, and its governing African National Congress has long championed the Palestinian cause. <\/p>\n
Ahead of the hearing South Africa was accused by Israel and others of hypocrisy for not also bringing a charge of genocide against Hamas, whose founding charter mandates the killing of Jews and the destruction of Israel. <\/p>\n
South Africa explained during the hearing that \u201cHamas is not a state and cannot be a party to the genocide convention,\u201d and said the group would be accountable to \u201cother bodies\u201d such as the International Criminal Court, which tries individuals \u2013 rather than states \u2013 for crimes including war crimes and crimes against humanity. <\/p>\n
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation, a grouping of 57 Muslim countries, as well as Jordan, Turkey and Malaysia have so far backed South Africa\u2019s case, while Israel\u2019s allies have fiercely opposed it. <\/p>\n
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken described the case as \u201cmeritless,\u201d and said it was \u201cparticularly galling given that those who are attacking Israel \u2013 Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, as well as their supporter of Iran \u2013 continue to openly call for the annihilation of Israel and the mass murder of Jews.\u201d <\/p>\n
South Africa presented widely reported evidence that it said showed a \u201csystematic pattern of conduct\u201d by Israel \u201cfrom which genocide can be inferred.\u201d The UN defines genocide as an act \u201ccommitted with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cSouth Africa believes that the publicly available evidence of the scale of the destruction resulting from the bombardment of Gaza, and the deliberate restriction of food, water, medicines and electricity available to the population of Gaza, demonstrates that the government of Israel\u2026 is intent on destroying the Palestinians in Gaza as a group, and is doing nothing to prevent or punish the actions of others who support that aim,\u201d said Lowe. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe use of 2,000-pound bunker-busting bombs and dumb bombs in residential areas, and the relentless bombardment of Gaza\u2026 tell another story.\u201d <\/p>\n
Israel has repeatedly stressed that it is targeting Hamas \u2013 which has long been known to station military operations inside civilian buildings \u2013 rather than civilians in Gaza. <\/p>\n
South Africa argued that the evacuation order issued by Israel to residents of northern Gaza on October 13 \u2013 the first of its kind \u2013 was itself \u201cgenocidal,\u201d since \u201cit required immediate movement\u2026 while no humanitarian assistance was permitted.\u201d Israel said at the time that, by notifying the civilian population of a planned military attack, it was complying with international law. <\/p>\n
As well as detailing the actions of the Israeli military, South Africa also cited public pronouncements by Israeli officials it alleged were genocidal in nature. <\/p>\n
\u201cIsrael\u2019s political leaders, military commanders, and persons holding official positions, have systematically and in explicit terms declared their genocidal intent,\u201d argued Tembeka Ngcukaitobi. <\/p>\n
Ngcukaitobi cited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s address to Israeli forces on October 28, ahead of the imminent launch of its ground offensive in Gaza. <\/p>\n
\u201cRemember what Amalek did to you,\u201d Netanyahu said in his address, which Ngcukaitobi told the court \u201crefers to a Biblical command by God to Saul for the retaliatory destruction of an entire group of people known as the Amalekites.\u201d <\/p>\n
There is precedent for the court to grant the kind of emergency orders South Africa is calling for. <\/p>\n
In January 2020, the court granted The Gambia\u2019s request for provisional measures to protect the Rohingya people remaining in Myanmar from genocide. The Court has granted similar measures to protect Ukrainians from ongoing Russian aggression, and Bosnians during the Balkan Wars in the 1990s. <\/p>\n
Max du Plessis, another of South Africa\u2019s lawyers, said if the court failed to do so it risked treating Palestinians \u201cdifferently, as less worthy of protection than others.\u201d <\/p>\n
Countries are unable to appeal the rulings but the ICJ has no way of enforcing them. A 2022 report by Human Rights Watch found continued abuses against the Rohingya remaining in Myanmar, despite the provisional measures. Similarly, despite the court in March 2022 ordering Russia to immediately suspend its invasion of Ukraine, Moscow\u2019s war rages on nearly two years later. <\/p>\n
While an ICJ ruling against Israel may fail to constrain its military action, it could land a serious blow to Israel\u2019s international reputation. <\/p>\n
The Israeli Foreign Ministry accused South Africa of \u201cfunctioning as the legal arm of Hamas\u201d in furious comments on Thursday. <\/p>\n
\u201cToday we were witness to one of the greatest shows of hypocrisy in history, compounded by a series of false and baseless claims,\u201d Lior Haiat, a spokesperson for the ministry, said on X. <\/p>\n
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also hit out at South Africa. <\/p>\n
\u201cToday, again, we saw an upside-down world, in which the State of Israel is accused of genocide at a time when it is fighting genocide,\u201d he said during a televised speech Thursday. <\/p>\n
\u201cSouth Africa\u2019s hypocrisy screams to the high heavens.\u201d <\/p>\n\n
South Africa accused Israel of genocide in an unprecedented case at the\u00a0United Nations\u2019 top court, saying the country\u2019s leadership was \u201cintent on destroying the Palestinians in Gaza\u201d and calling for the court to order a halt to Israel\u2019s military campaign in the enclave. On the first of two days of hearings at the International Court <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":13909,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13908","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\/13908","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=13908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}