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Human Rights lawyer Richard Spoor says Israel is doing a good job at arguing that South Africa has failed to prove genocidal intent in its war against Hamas in Gaza. This as Israel presented its case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague in the Netherlands.

Yesterday, South Africa presented its case and asked the ICJ to impose emergency measures ordering Israel to immediately halt its offensive in Gaza. Spoor says Israel has argued that South Africa’s referral to the court was premature and says it does seem as if South Africa may have acted with inappropriate haste, which gives Israel the opportunity to embarrass South Africa.

Spoor says, “So we should say listen, we’ve got a problem, Israel should be able to respond to that and we should be able to see if we remain in dispute or if it can be clarified. Now the law that was cited by council for Israel is that we failed to do that.”

He further adds, “We declared a dispute, we didn’t give Israel a chance to respond, we didn’t engage with them. And in fact they go further to say that we’re being dishonest about those exchanges between us. They say there is no evidence of any positive engagement and therefore, the dispute wasn’t ripe and wasn’t ready to be referred to the court.”