South Africa told judges at the World Court in The Hague on Thursday that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and pleaded with the court to issue an interim order for an immediate halt to Israel’s military actions.
Ahead of the proceedings at the UN court, hundreds of pro-Israeli protesters marched close to the courthouse with banners saying “Bring them home,” referring to the hostages still held by Hamas. Among the crowds, people were holding Israeli and Dutch flags.
Outside the court, others were protesting and waving the Palestinian flag in support of South Africa’s move.
“Israel has a genocidal intent against the Palestinians in Gaza,” Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, advocate of the High Court of South Africa, told the court.
“That is evident from the way in which this military attack is being conducted,” he said, adding: “The intent to destroy Gaza has been nurtured at the highest level of state.”
They asked judges to impose binding preliminary orders on Israel, including an immediate halt to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
South Africa’s governing African National Congress party 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 Black people to “homelands” before ending in 1994.
The country’s lawyers immediately sought to broaden the case beyond the narrow confines of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
Representatives of South Africa told judges at the International Court of Justice in The Hague on Thursday that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, using statements of several Israeli leaders to prove genocidal intent. Israel will present its defence on Friday.
“The violence and the destruction in Palestine and Israel did not begin on Oct. 7, 2023. The Palestinians have experienced systematic oppression and violence for the last 76 years,” said South African Justice Minister Ronald Lamola.
Rieaz Shaik, South Africa’s High Commissioner to Canada, told CBC News this week that the country expects a finding on genocide “will take a considerable amount of time.”
“What’s more important is that there will be a declaration on interim measures that we are asking for,” Shaik said, which include a “cessation of hostilities” in Gaza and the provision of humanitarian aid.
Asked about South Africa’s claim, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland on Thursday said Canada is “aware of the filing and reviewing the case carefully” but did not take a position on the case.
Asked about South Africa’s claim before the International Court of Justice that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said Canada is “aware of the filing and reviewing the case carefully” but did not take a position on the case.
Israel has been critical of UN and international tribunals, which it sees as often unfair and biased. For example, it does not recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.
But it did, in 1951, ratify the Geneva Convention, the set of international humanitarian laws and protocols that govern conduct in armed conflict. Alleged contraventions of the convention by states can be tried before the International Court of Justice, while the ICC tries individuals accused of war crimes.
Israel has sent a strong legal team to present its defence Friday concerning its military operation launched in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas.
The Foreign Ministry in Tel Aviv said South Africa’s case lacks legal foundation and constitutes a “despicable and contemptuous exploitation” of the court.
Israel slams ‘hypocrisy’ of the case
Eylon Levy, an official in the Israeli prime minister’s office, in a statement accused South Africa of “giving political and legal cover” to Hamas and promised a vigorous defence on Friday.
“This is an upside-down world. The state of Israel is accused of genocide while it is fighting genocide,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in video statement.
“The hypocrisy of South Africa screams to the heavens,” Netanyahu said.
How tragic that South Africa has chosen to play advocate for the devil, and serve as the legal branch of the Hamas terrorist organization. The nation that once prided itself on fighting racism is now fighting pro bono for the biggest racists after their 10/7 act of genocide.
‘International moral failure’
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.
Last week, the UN humanitarian chief called Gaza “uninhabitable” and warned about famine.
South African lawyers highlighted the deaths of women, children and health-care workers, captured on traditional and social media.
Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh, from Ireland speaking on behalf of the South African position, argued before the court it was “the first genocide in history where its victims are broadcasting their own destruction in real time, in the desperate but so far vain hope that the world might do something.”
“Gaza represents nothing but an international moral failure,” she said. “The failure has repercussions not only on the people of Gaza, but for generations to come.”
Israel’s case expected to be built on self-defence
Israel itself has always focused attention on the Oct. 7 attacks themselves, when Hamas fighters stormed through several of its communities and killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, including several Canadians. They abducted around 250 others, nearly half of whom have been released.
The United Nations’ top court is preparing to hear South Africa’s claim that Israel is committing genocide in its Gaza offensive. Power & Politics speaks to South Africa’s High Commissioner Rieaz Shaik about their claim.
Geoffrey Nice, a British barrister, was the lead prosecutor when former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic went on trial for war crimes before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague in 2002.
Nice said Israel’s case is likely to be built on self-defence, but it may be asked to further justify the extent of its military campaign in Gaza.
“Israel is in difficulty, some say, because of the quantity of damage that it’s done, which has been quite extreme or extraordinary, the number of civilians who have died, without it ever being fully explained why it was necessary to go as far as it did in the purpose of self-defence,” Nice told CBC News.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken dismissed South Africa’s case as “meritless” in a visit to Tel Aviv on Tuesday.
South Africa is pleading with the International Court of Justice in The Hague to order an immediate halt to Israel’s military actions in Gaza. Kyle Matthews, executive director of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, says he doubts either the Israeli government or Hamas would heed any ruling from the court.
The World Court has never judged a country to be responsible for genocide, though in 2007 it ruled 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.
There is also no enforcement mechanism in the event of a genocide ruling.
Israel is back on the International Court of Justice’s docket next month, when hearings open into a UN request for a non-binding advisory opinion on the legality of Israeli policies in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
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