AMN / WEB DESK
South Africa is taking the war in Gaza to The International Court Of Justice, accusing Israel of genocide in a lengthy court filing that the Court is preparing to hear next week.
Israel says the filing constitutes “blood libel,” while USA dimisses it as “meritless.”
More than 22,000 Palestinians have perished since the start of Israel’s offensive on Gaza, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. U.S. officials have previously cast doubt on those figures, noting that the ministry is run by Hamas, the group that was elected to govern Gaza and whose armed wing launched the October 7 attack on Israel that killed more than 1,200 people.
Hamas, which is designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. and some of its allies, lists the killing of Jews and the elimination of the Jewish state as its main objectives.
South Africa’s 84-page submission, filed last week, says that Israel’s actions in its Gaza offensive “are genocidal in character, as they are committed with the requisite specific intent … to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as a part of the broader Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group.”
Israel’s use of state organs and agents to do this, they say, is a violation of its obligations under the 1948 Genocide Convention.
International organizations, including United Nations agencies, have raised alarms over possible war crimes, with the U.N.’s human rights agency calling in November for “prompt, transparent and independent investigations into allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity, perpetrated in Israel and in the Occupied Palestinian Territory on 7 October 2023 and thereafter.”
On December 29, 2023, South Africa filed an instituting proceedings against Israel before the International Court of Justice (the ICJ), concerning alleged violations by Israel of its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the Genocide Convention) in relation to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip (the Application). The ICJ is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations.