ICJ to deliver judgment in SA-Israel case on Friday

Reading Time: 3 minutes

The International Court of Justice will deliver its ruling on the South Africa-Israel case in the Hague on Friday. South Africa dragged Israel to the World Court, accusing it of committing genocide in Gaza.

Israel has rejected the accusations, saying it has a right to defend itself against Hamas. The Palestinian organisation orchestrated the 7 October incursion where 1 200 people died. Israel has since retaliated and almost 26 000 people have died in Gaza.

South Africa’s legal team has requested the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to order Israel to stop its military operation in Gaza. Scores of Palestinians have died since Israel declared war against Hamas. Pretoria also insists that Israel, as a signatory of the 1948 Genocide Convention, must take reasonable measures to prevent genocide in accordance with its obligations under the convention on prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide, in relation to the Palestinian people.

“Under the Genocide Convention, nothing justifies genocidal acts currently committed by Israel. So, defence is no answer to genocide. Nothing can ever justify genocide. There’s no balancing exercise as Israel has sought to suggest. The prohibition is absolute. It’s a primary rule of law, no matter what some individual within the group of Palestine in Gaza may have done and no matter how great the threats to Israel’s citizens might be, genocidal attacks on the whole of Gaza and the whole of this population with the intent of destroying them cannot be justified at all,” said Minister of Justice and Correctional Services Ronald Lamola.

But Israel has rebuffed South Africa’s argument, saying it will continue with the military operation as it seeks to dismantle the military capabilities of Hamas.

Israeli legal adviser, Tal Becker said South Africa does not have a case.

“The applicant has regrettably put before the court a profoundly distorted factual and legal picture. The entirety of its case hinges on a deliberately curated, decontextualized, and manipulative description of the reality of current hostilities. South Africa purports to come to this court in the lofty position of a guardian of the interest of humanity. But in delegitimizing Israel’s 75-year existence in its opening presentation yesterday, that broad commitment to humanity rang hollow.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says they will continue fighting in Gaza to ensure that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel. That is despite reports that Israel and Hamas have made some progress toward an agreement on a 30-day ceasefire in Gaza.

“The goals of this war as laid out by the war cabinet after the October 7th massacre and handed down to the IDF remain unchanged. The destruction of Hamas governing and military capabilities in the Gaza strip and the return of all the hostages. There will be no ceasefire that leaves the hostages in Gaza and Hamas in power. Beyond that, we have nothing to elaborate,” says Israel’s government spokesperson is Eylon Levy.

The World Food Programme’s Communications officer, Abeer Etefa, has painted a bleak picture about the current situation in Gaza.

“I think the risks of having pockets of famine in Gaza is very much still there. The assessment that we have done during the humanitarian pause, which was I think around the last week of November, has shown that we do have more than half a million people in Gaza facing catastrophic food insecurity levels and the risk of famine increases each day.”

Meanwhile, rights and environmental activists demanding a ceasefire in Gaza, unveiled a giant picture in Madrid and highlighting the horrors of the war.