“What we expect today is to hear from South Africa, their application for preliminary measures, basically to argue that Israel is committing genocide, not preventing genocide, not doing enough to deal with those who are committing genocide,” Al Jazeera’s Stefanie Dekker reports from occupied East Jerusalem.

“What’s interesting is that South Africa will be laying out a case that goes back before October 7.

“This is to counter the argument that Israel will be putting forward where it’s going to highlight the atrocities Hamas committed on October 7, that what it is doing in Gaza is self-defence and that it is taking the utmost care not to target civilians,” Dekker adds.

“What South Africa is going to argue — going back in time decades — is that this is simply a pattern of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian people and that it has simply escalated to unprecedented levels now.”