South Africa addressed the UN's highest court on Thursday in a
bid to end the mass killing of civilians in Gaza, accusing Israel
of carrying out genocide against Palestinians there – a claim
that Israel has strongly denied as "baseless".
The development came amid the ongoing and massive Israeli
bombardment across the Gaza Strip in response to Hamas-led terror
attacks on 7 October that left some 1,200 Israeli and foreign
nationals dead in southern Israel and some 250 taken hostage.
Laying out their case, the South African legal team told the
International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague that
Israel had demonstrated a “pattern of genocidal
conduct” since launching its full-scale war in Gaza, the
365 square kilometre strip of land it has occupied since 1967.
“This killing is nothing short of destruction of Palestinian
life. It is inflicted deliberately, no-one is spared, not even
newborn babies,” the court heard.
Unprecedented violence
Israel’s actions had subjected the 2.3 million people of Gaza to
an unprecedented level of attacks from the air, land and sea,
resulting in the deaths of thousands of civilians and the
destruction of homes and essential public infrastructure,
insisted Adila Hassim.
Israel had also prevented sufficient humanitarian aid from
reaching those in need and created the risk of death by
starvation and disease because of the impossibility of providing
assistance “while bombs fall”, the South Africa lawyer
alleged.
“Palestinians in Gaza are subject to relentless bombing wherever
they go,” Ms. Hassim told the court, adding that so many people
had been killed that they were often buried unidentified in mass
graves. An additional 60,000 Palestinians had been wounded and
maimed, she noted.
“They are killed in their homes, in places where they seek
shelter, in hospitals, in schools, in mosques, in churches, and
as they tried to find food and water for their families. They
have been killed if they have failed to evacuate the places to
which they have fled and even if they attempted to flee along
Israeli-declared safe routes.”
As part of its claim against Israel, South Africa alleges that
6,000 bombs hit Gaza in the first week of the Israeli response to
the Hamas-led attacks. This included the use of 2,000-pound bombs
at least 200 times “in southern areas of the Strip that were
designated as safe”, and in the north, where refugee camps were
located, Ms. Hassim said.
These weapons were “some of the biggest and most destructive
bombs available”, she maintained, adding that genocides “are
never declared in advance, but this court has the benefit of the
past 13 weeks of evidence that shows incontrovertibly a pattern
of conduct and related intention that justifies a plausible claim
of genocidal acts”.
Convention’s obligations
It was because of these actions that Israel had contravened the
Genocide Convention, the ICJ judges later heard, in reference to
the global treaty inked by Members of the United Nations after
the Second World War to prevent crimes against humanity.
The Convention was “dedicated to saving
humanity”, insisted John Dugard, also representing
South Africa, and all countries that had signed up to the
Convention “are obliged not only to desist from genocidal acts
but also to prevent them”, he maintained.
The hearing continues on Friday with the Israeli presentation.
Rights chief Türk rejects ‘blood libel’
In a related development, the UN’s top human rights official has
defended criticism of the invasion of Gaza, saying that it is
“not antisemitic” to call out “gross violations” of international
humanitarian law.
Writing in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Wednesday, Volker
Türk once again strongly condemned “the shocking cruelty of the
attack launched from Gaza by Hamas and other armed groups on
October 7”.
The massacres that ensued created “intense and continuing trauma"
across Israel”, the UN rights chief continued, before insisting
that the country’s “campaign of overwhelming force” had been
“tainted by grave breaches of international law”.
Rocket fire from Gaza into Israel has also continued, Mr. Türk
noted, before expressing regret that some Israeli officials had
tried to discredit his Office’s concerns by claiming that they
constitute "blood libel".
“It is not a blood libel to deplore the failure to hold to
account Israeli soldiers and armed settlers who have killed
hundreds of Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7, or the
prolongation of a war whose conduct has raised grave
international humanitarian and human rights law concerns,” the UN
rights chief stressed.
