• Quoting Israeli ministers, Pretoria argues intent to destroy Gaza Strip nurtured at ‘highest levels’ of govt in Tel Aviv
• Israel plays victim card, claims it is fighting ‘terrorists’

THE HAGUE: South Africa accused Israel on Thursday of carrying out genocide in Gaza and demanded that the UN’s top court order an emergency suspension of Israel’s devastating military campaign in the Palestinian enclave.

On the first of two days of hearings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), also known as the World Court, South Africa said Israel’s attack on Gaza, which has demolished much of the coastal enclave and killed more than 23,000 people, aimed to bring about “the destruction of the (territory’s) population”.

“The intent to destroy Gaza has been nurtured at the highest level of state,” Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, advocate of the High Court of South Africa, told the court. He said Israel’s political and military leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, were among “the genocidal inciters”.

“That is evident from the way in which this military attack is being conducted,” he said.

Israel rejected the accusations of genocide as false and baseless and said South Africa was speaking on behalf of Hamas — which Pretoria said was untrue. Netanyahu said the court had been presented with “hypocrisy and lies”.

“Today we saw an upside-down world. Israel is accused of genocide while it is fighting against genocide,” he said in a statement.

“Israel is fighting murderous terrorists who carried out crimes against humanity: they slaughtered, they raped, they burned, they dismembered, they beheaded — children, women, elderly, young men and women,” he said.

Laying out its allegations of genocidal acts, South Africa pointed to Israel’s sustained bombing campaign and to comments by Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who said days after the Oct 7 Hamas raid that Israel would impose a total blockade as part of a battle against “human animals”.

“The evidence of genocidal intent is not only chilling, it is also overwhelming and incontrovertible,” Ngcukaitobi said.

The 1948 Genocide Convention, enacted in the wake of the Holocaust, defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”.

Emergency ruling

Since Israeli forces launched their attack, nearly all of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, one of the world’s most densely populated places, have been driven from their homes at least once, causing a humanitarian catastrophe.

“Every day, there is mounting, irreparable loss of life, property, dignity, and humanity for the Palestinian people,” said Adila Hassim, advocate of South Africa’s high court.

Post-apartheid South Africa has long defended the Palestinian cause, a relationship forged when the African National Congress’s struggle against white-minority rule was cheered on by Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organisation.

South Africa concluded its arguments by requesting emergency measures to stop the Israeli bombardment of Gaza. The ICJ’s decisions are final and without appeal, but it has no way to enforce them.

In its court filings, South Africa cited Israel’s failure to provide food, water, medicine and other essential assistance to Gaza.

In Gaza, Amer Salah, 23, who is sheltering in a UN school in the south after fleeing his home, said he hoped the trial would help pile pressure on Israel.

“We call upon the world to say enough to Israeli killings, enough to massacres, enough to the destruction of Gaza, enough to the bloodshed,” he said. Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said the group was following the court proceedings with great interest.

Published in Dawn, January 12th, 2024