A total of 633 Israelis have signed a petition calling on the ICJ to rule in favour of South Africa, Al Jazeera reports.

“We have decided to add the voice of citizens of Israel to the South Africa appeal mainly because this seems to be the most viable way to immediately stop the atrocities committed daily by the Israel army in Gaza and to enable the humanitarian aid so much needed in order to prevent an even greater disaster,” Anat Matar, a senior lecturer at the Department of Philosophy at Tel Aviv University, who helped organise the petition, told Al Jazeera.

She said the signatories were not legal experts and that they did not know if what was happening in Gaza fitted the “formal definition of genocide”.

However, she said they could see what was happening and “it has to be stopped now”.