The United Nations’ top court opens hearings Thursday into South Africa’s allegation that Israel’s war with Hamas amounts to genocide against Palestinians, a claim that Israel strongly denies.
South Africa is initially asking the International Court of Justice to order an immediate suspension of Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip as part of a case that is likely to take years to resolve.
The dispute strikes at the heart of Israel’s national identity as a Jewish state created in the aftermath of the Nazi genocide in the Holocaust.
It also involves South Africa’s identity: Its governing party, the African National Congress, has long compared Israel’s policies in Gaza and the West Bank to its own history under the apartheid regime of white minority rule, which restricted most Blacks to “homelands” before ending in 1994.
Although it normally considers U.N. and international tribunals unfair and biased, Israel has sent a strong legal team to defend its military operation launched in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas.
“I think they have come because they want to be exonerated and think they can successfully resist the accusation of genocide,” said Juliette McIntyre, an expert on international law at the University of South Australia.
In a statement after the case was filed late last year, the Palestinian Authority’s foreign ministry urged the court to “immediately take action to protect the Palestinian people and call on Israel, the occupying power, to halt its onslaught against the Palestinian people, in order to ensure an objective legal resolution.”
Two days of preliminary hearings will begin with lawyers for South Africa explaining why the country has accused Israel of “acts and omissions” that are “genocidal in character” in the Gaza war and why it is calling for the court to issue an interim order for an immediate halt to Israel’s military actions. A decision will likely take weeks.
Israel’s offensive has killed more than 23,200 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. About two-thirds of the dead are women and children, health officials say. The death toll does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.
In the Oct. 7 attack, in which Hamas fighters stormed through several communities in Israel and killed some 1,200 people, mainly civilians. They abducted around 250 others, nearly half of whom have been released.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken dismissed the case as “ meritless ” during a visit to Tel Aviv on Tuesday.
“It is particularly galling, given that those who are attacking Israel — Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, as well as their supporter Iran — continue to call for the annihilation of Israel and the mass murder of Jews,” he said.
The world court, which rules on disputes between nations, has never judged a country to be responsible for genocide. The closest it came was in 2007 when it ruled that Serbia “violated the obligation to prevent genocide” in the July 1995 massacre by Bosnian Serb forces of more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica.
South Africa “will have a hard time getting over the threshold” of proving genocide, McIntyre said.
“It’s not simply a matter of killing enormous numbers of people,” she said in an email to The Associated Press. “There must be an intent to destroy a group of people (classified by race or religion for example) in whole or in part, in a particular place.”
In a detailed, 84-page document launching the case, South Africa argued Israel has demonstrated that intent.
Israel responded by insisting it operates according to international law and focuses its military actions solely against Hamas. It said that the residents of Gaza are not an enemy and that it takes steps to minimize harm to civilians and to allow humanitarian aid to enter the territory.
An Israeli Foreign Ministry statement called South Africa’s case a “despicable and contemptuous exploitation” of the court.
The case revolves around the genocide convention that was drawn up in 1948 in the aftermath of World War II and the murder of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust. Both Israel and South Africa are signatories.
In its written filing, South Africa says it wants the court “to establish Israel’s responsibility for violations of the Genocide Convention; to hold it fully accountable under international law for those violations” and to “ensure the urgent and fullest possible protection for Palestinians in Gaza who remain at grave and immediate risk of continuing and further acts of genocide.”
A team of lawyers representing South Africa will present three hours of arguments in the court’s wood-paneled Great Hall of Justice. Israel’s legal team will have three hours Friday morning to answer the allegations.
Among South Africa’s delegation will be former British opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, whose leadership of the left-of-center Labour Party was stained by allegations of antisemitism. He is a longtime supporter of the Palestinian cause and a fierce critic of Israel.
Human Rights Watch said the hearings will provide scrutiny of Israel’s actions.
“South Africa’s genocide case unlocks a legal process at the world’s highest court to credibly examine Israel’s conduct in Gaza in the hopes of curtailing further suffering,” said Balkees Jarrah, the group’s associate international justice director.
The U.N. court, headquartered in the ornate Peace Palace in a leafy suburb of The Hague, deals with disputes between nations. The International Criminal Court, based a few miles (kilometers) away in the same Dutch city, prosecutes individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
Israel is back on the International Court of Justice’s docket next month, when hearings open into a U.N. request for a non-binding advisory opinion on the legality of Israeli policies in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
Follow us on:
Nigeria's petrol prices are now ranked among the highest in Africa after subsidy removal, despite…
Overland Airways has launched Lagos-Banjul flights, aligning with SAATM and AfCFTA goals to boost intra-African…
Saipem, with KOA Oil & Gas and AVEON Offshore, has secured a $1bn Shell contract…
Atiku has criticised the 2025 federal budget, calling it inadequate to address Nigeria's challenges, with…
The federal government has cautioned politicians against politicising stampede incidents in Ibadan, Abuja, and Okija,…
Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour has condemned the commercialisation of GMO seeds, warning of threats to Nigeria’s food…
View Comments
N. C. SSOME CAR LIST BELOW.
O91 5608 9111
Golf 2 3 4 500k
2012 Matrix N980k
bag of🎒 rice 🍚 #18 500
2011 Honda CRV 700k
2011 Honda Element 950k
2008 Camry 990k
2012 Honda Ridgeline 2.2m
2014 Camry LE 2.750m
Camry Spider 950k
Camry Muscle 850k
Tacoma 2.5M
2013 Ford Edge SEL 2m
2014 Ford Edge SEL .3m
Fresh like toks 2013 Benz E200 N.2m
2012 Rav4 1.9m
2014 Kia Cerato 2.m
2014 Benz GLK350 3m
2014 Range Rover evogue 3.650m
2006 Quest 850k
2008 Kia Rio 800k
2010 Camry Xle 1.680m
Haicebus 2.5M
TOKUNBO CARS BELOW :�
2014 Corolla Sport 1.8m
Corolla 650k
Camry 2.4 750,000
2012 Corolla Sport 1.970m
2014 Corolla Sport 2.980m
Awoof 2012 Lexus RX350 3.5m
2003 Camry XLE - Back Vent AC - V4 - 1.580MVENZA 1.7
TIPPER head 5mill
Dyna Truck 900k
2011 Camry N1.280m
2013 Camry N1.520m
2015 Camry LE 1.680m
2005 Matrix 600
2007 Toyota Camry 950k
2008 Camry Sport 2m
Highlander 1m
PADRO JEEP 1.6m
2007 Rav4 Sport N800
2011 Honda pilot EX 900k
2005 Benz E320 N950k
1999 Sienna 350k
ES350 1.5MILLION
ES330 1,300m
2000 Lexus RX300 750
Pegeout 407 Manual AC 720k
2008 Honda CRV EX 980
2009 Corolla XLE - Alloy + Formica 850k
2004 Toyota LandCruiser 700k
2004 Corolla LE 300k
2010 RX350 1.6m with Mouse
2011 RX350 2m with mouse
2008 Toyota Tacoma 2.7m
2006 Avalon Thumbstart 750
2007 Avalon key O91 5608 9111
}〽.INSTALLMENTAL PAYMENT IS FULL ALLOWED!!All VEHICLES ARE HIGHLY NEGOTIABLE〽WE COMMENCE DELIVERY WITHIN 36 STATE IN NIGERIAO91 5608 9111