ICJ genocide case: South Africa’s five-point argument against Israel

GAZA STRIP (Palestinian Territories), Jan 12 (Agencies): South Africa’s landmark case against Israel for its war on Gaza began on Thursday at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the World Court based in The Hague. Pretoria is accusing Israel of committing the crime of genocide in breach of the 1948 Genocide Convention.
More than 23,000 people have been killed in Gaza since October 7, according to the enclave’s health ministry. That includes nearly 10,000 children.
In its three-hour long presentation to ICJ judges, the South African team, led by international law academic and barrister, John Dugard, articulated the harrowing plight of Palestinians in Gaza who are trapped under siege, bombarded by continuous Israeli air strikes and attacked by a deadly Israeli military ground invasion.
Adila Hassim, one of the advocates representing South Africa, said that it’s not necessary for the court to come to a final sentence on the genocide allegations now, but that it could conclude that at least some of Israel’s actions fall within the definition of the convention, and thus, intervene.
Here are the five main “genocidal acts” that Hassim accused Israel of having perpetrated during the war:
Mass killings of Palestinians
The “first genocidal act is the mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza”, Hassim said, showing the court pictures of mass graves where bodies were buried, “often unidentified”. She said Israel has deployed highly destructive 2000-pound bombs in parts of Gaza that it has itself declared safe. More than 1,800 families have lost multiple family members, while some families do not have any survivors left, Hassim said. No one has been spared, not babies, and especially not children, she added.
Bodily and mental harm
The second genocidal act, Hassim said, “is Israel’s infliction of serious mental and bodily harm,” on the people in Gaza. Close to 60,000 people have been wounded and maimed, most of them women and children, in a place where the health system has collapsed, she added. Hassim cited the arrest of large numbers of Palestinians, including children, who were undressed and loaded onto trucks going to unknown locations. “The suffering of the Palestinian people, physical and mental, is undeniable,” she said.
Forced displacement and food blockade
Hassim said Israel has deliberately imposed conditions that cannot sustain life and that are calculated to bring about the destruction of Gaza through its forced displacement of most of the population. Hassim said thousands of families have been displaced multiple times, with half a million now having no homes to return to. She cited how Israel gave entire hospitals orders to evacuate within 24 hours with no assistance in moving the injured or in moving medical supplies. It did the same with large parts of northern Gaza, where more than one million people were asked to move at short notice.
Destruction of the healthcare system
The fourth genocidal action, Hassim said, is Israel’s military assault on Gaza’s healthcare system that renders life there unsustainable. Gaza’s healthcare was already crippled by years of attack by Israel, she said, and now, it is simply unable to cope with the sheer number of injured people who need life-saving treatment.
Preventing Palestinian births
Lastly, Hassim added, Israel is blocking life-saving treatment needed to deliver babies. This, she added, amounts to preventing births in Gaza, and is an act of genocide. Hassim also cited Reem Alsalem, UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, who had earlier warned that the “reproductive violence inflicted by Israel on Palestinian women, newborn babies infants and children … could be qualified as acts of genocide”.
South Africa’s landmark case against Israel for its war on Gaza began on Thursday at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the World Court based in The Hague. Pretoria is accusing Israel of committing the crime of genocide in breach of the 1948 Genocide Convention. Israeli strikes killed dozens in Gaza overnight Thursday-Friday, sources on both sides said on the 98th day of the war between Israel and Palestinian group Hamas.
An AFP journalist reported strikes and artillery shelling hit areas between the southern cities of Khan Yunis and Rafah, which is crowded with people who fled from the north.
The bombardment killed at least 59 people and wounded dozens more across the besieged territory, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said. The Israeli army said it had killed seven "terrorists" in a strike in Khan Yunis and a further 20 in the Maghazi area to the north.
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Israel’s legal representatives on Friday claimed South Africa’s case was “unfounded”, “absurd” and amounting to “libel”, and said Israel sought not to destroy a people but to protect its people.
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