South Africa accuses Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza before the Hague Court

Israel is already facing international justice for its military response to the October 7 Hamas attacks that killed more than 1,200 people in the south of the country.

The International Court of Justice, a United Nations court based in the Dutch city of The Hague, began its sessions this Thursday after the hearing denunciation of the genocide against Israel presented by South Africa. South African lawyers filed a complaint for hours, accusing Israel of violating the United Nations Convention Against Genocide.

South Africa filed a complaint in December and asked, in addition to preliminary measures to end Israeli bombing of Gaza, that judges later decide whether or not Israel committed genocide with such bombings. The most credible figures speak of over 22,000 Palestinian deaths, more than half of them women and children.

South African lawyers have said the new war in Gaza is part of decades of Israeli oppression of Palestinians.

The two-day hearing is the public version of a historic case, one of the most important to be heard in an international court and which goes to the heart of one of the world’s most difficult conflicts.

“Genocides are never declared in advance, but this court has the benefit of the last 13 weeks of evidence that incontrovertibly proves a pattern of behavior and its intention which justifies as a plausible accusation of genocidal acts,” South African lawyer Adila Hassim told the judges in the packed and decorated courtroom of the Peace Palace in The Hague.

The Israeli bombing campaign aims to “destroy the lives of Palestinians” and push them “to the brink of famine,” Hassim said.

“Nothing will stop the suffering except an order from this court,” the lawyer added.

Israel, however, says it is fighting a ferocious enemy in the Gaza Strip that has carried out the deadliest attack on its territory since its creation in 1948. Israel says it is following international law and doing everything it can to prevent harm to civilians.

He blames Hamas for the high number of victims, saying that its enemy settles in residential areas, hospitals or schools, and uses civilians as human shields.

South Africa, however, insists that Israel intentionally committed genocide.

“The scale of destruction in Gaza, the attacks on families and civilians, the fact that the war is against children, make it clear that the genocidal intent was understood and was put into practice. The articulated intent is the destruction of Palestinian life,” said lawyer Tembeka Ngcukaitobi.

The International Court of Justice, in addition to a future ruling, can issue a short-term ruling, in days or weeks interim decisions such as the suspension of Israeli military operations. No one expects the Israeli government to accept such a decision, but the image damage for the country and, above all, for the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, would be undoubted.

Possible provisional measures

European diplomats consulted by Clarion in Brussels estimate that it is likely that the judges will announce some type of provisional measure like this in weeks stop military operations or impose humanitarian corridors. The same court established provisional measures against Russia at the beginning of Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine, but Moscow has always turned a deaf ear.

Despite doubts in recent weeks, the Israeli government sent a legal representative to the sessions that began Thursday in The Hague.

The team is led by the prestigious jurist (now retired) Aharon Barak, a former president of the Israeli Supreme Court who fled the Nazis to Israel from his native Lithuania. In recent months Barak has been critical of Netanyahu’s planned judicial reform, which had led to massive demonstrations against him until the brutal Hamas terror attack in October.

Israel’s position

Israel’s position is that its military operations are for self-defense after Hamas attacks to prevent their recurrence. Prime Minister Netanyahu said Wednesday that the military offensive complies with international law, something like that already calls into question the European Union when he asks Israel that its response to the attacks complies with international law, because he believes it now does not.

The European Foreign Minister, the Spanish-Argentine Josep Borrell, said this on Thursday

Netanyahu said on Wednesday that “Israel has no intention of permanently occupying Gaza or displacing the civilian population,” but many of his ministers continue to repeat this idea. Amihai Eliyahu, minister of the current far-right government, said that the solution should be to drop an atomic bomb on Gaza. Netanyahu condemned those statements, but Eliyahu remains a minister.

Borrell shows a clearer position than that of all the European governments he represents in foreign policy. While senior officials from the Belgian and Spanish governments are calling on their countries to join South Africa’s denunciation, in Germany a spokesperson for the head of government Olaf Scholz said that “the accusation that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza is false.”

Belgium, Spain, Ireland and Malta are the European countries that have been harshest towards Israeli bombings in recent weeks.