by South Africa argued Thursday that Israel is acting with “genocidal intent” in Gaza, citing as evidence the words of Israeli officials, including the Defense Minister. Yoav Gallant, who said Israel would impose a full siege on the territory because it was fighting “human animals.”
On the first day of a two-day hearing at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, South African representatives said that Statements by Israeli officials such as Mr. Gallant communicated the intention to commit genocide. Israel categorically denies the accusation of genocide and will present its defense on Friday.
To constitute genocide, there must be a demonstrated intention on the part of the perpetrators to physically destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, according to the UN convention on genocide, to which Israel is a signatory. However, intent is often the most difficult element to prove in such cases.
At the conclusion of the hearing, South Africa, which brought the case against Israel, asked the court to issue an emergency order calling on Israel to immediately suspend all military operations in Gaza, including rescinding evacuation orders and allowing people there. receive food, water and shelter. and clothes.
The decisions of the tribunal, the highest judicial body of the United Nations, are binding, but there are few means to enforce them. A final ruling could take years to arrive.
The charge of genocide has particular significance in Israel, which was founded after the near-total destruction of European Jewry during World War II and became a refuge for Jews expelled from Arab lands. An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, Lior Haiat, called Thursday’s trial “one of the greatest displays of hypocrisy in history” and repeated Israel’s argument that it is Hamas that should face charges of genocide.
The Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, also denounced the case. “Today, once again, we have seen a world turned upside down, in which the State of Israel is accused of genocide at a time when it is fighting genocide,” he said in a statement.
Haiat called Hamas “a racist and anti-Semitic terrorist organization that calls in its convention for the destruction of the State of Israel and the murder of Jews.” And he said the genocide case brought by South Africa – whose post-apartheid government has long supported the Palestinian cause – overlooked the atrocities committed by Hamas in its October 7 terrorist attacks in southern Israel.
South Africa “completely ignored the fact that Hamas terrorists infiltrated Israel, murdered, executed, massacred, raped and kidnapped Israeli citizens, simply because they were Israelis, in an attempt to carry out genocide,” he said.
The court hearings are the first time that Israel has chosen to defend itself in person in such an environment, demonstrating the seriousness of the accusation and how much is at stake for the country’s international reputation and prestige.
The Hamas attacks on October 7 killed about 1,200 people and led to about 240 being taken hostage, according to Israeli officials. Israel has responded with airstrikes and a ground invasion that have killed more than 23,000 Palestinians, many of them women and children, according to Gaza health officials, whose count does not distinguish between combatants and civilians. Most of Gaza’s 2.2 million residents have been displaced since the fighting began, increasing the danger of disease and hungeraccording to international organizations.
South African Justice Minister Ronald Lamola condemned the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7, but said the scale of Israel’s military response in Gaza was not justified. He told the court that the Israeli offensive had created conditions for Gazans designed “to bring about their physical destruction.”
Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, another South African lawyer arguing in the case, said statements by Israeli officials like Gallant, who said after the Hamas attack that Israel would not let into Gaza “no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel” : amounted to a directive to physically destroy Gazans and a “communicated state policy.”
“There is no ambiguity in this,” Ngcukaitobi said. “It means creating deadly conditions for the Palestinian people in Gaza, dying slowly due to hunger and dehydration or dying quickly due to a bomb attack or sniper attack, but dying anyway.”
Israeli leaders have said South Africa’s accusations pervert the meaning of genocide and the purpose of the 1948 genocide convention. They point to millions of messages, sent by various means, asking Gazan civilians to evacuate to safer areas before bombings, and say they are constantly working to increase the amount of aid coming into Gaza.
