THE HAGUE--South Africa accused Israel on Thursday of carrying out genocide in Gaza and demanded that the U.N.'s top court order an emergency suspension of Israel's devastating military campaign in the Palestinian enclave.
On the first of two days of hearings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), South Africa said Israel's offensive, which has demolished much of the coastal enclave and killed more than 23,000 people according to Gaza health authorities, aimed to bring about "the destruction of the population" of Gaza. "The intent to destroy Gaza has been nurtured at the highest level of state," Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, advocate of the High Court of South Africa, told the court. He said Israel's political and military leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, were among "the genocidal inciters". "That is evident from the way in which this military attack is being conducted," he said. Israel rejected the accusations of genocide as false and baseless and said South Africa was speaking on behalf of Hamas - which Pretoria said was untrue. Netanyahu said the court had been presented with hypocrisy and lies. "Today we saw an upside-down world. Israel is accused of genocide while it is fighting against genocide," he said in a statement. "Israel is fighting murderous terrorists who carried out crimes against humanity: They slaughtered, they raped, they burned, they dismembered, they beheaded - children, women, elderly, young men and women," he said. Israel launched its onslaught after a cross-border rampage on Oct. 7 by Hamas militants in which Israeli officials said 1,200 people were killed, mainly civilians, and 240 taken hostage back to Gaza. Israel says it is waging war against Palestinian militants, not the Palestinian people. Laying out its allegations of genocidal acts, South Africa also pointed to Israel's sustained bombing campaign and to comments by Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who said early in the war that Israel would impose a total blockade as part of a battle against "human animals". "The evidence of genocidal intent is not only chilling, it is also overwhelming and incontrovertible," Ngcukaitobi said. The 1948 Genocide Convention, enacted in the wake of the mass murder of Jews in the Nazi Holocaust, defines genocide as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group." Since Israeli forces launched their offensive, nearly all of Gaza's 2.3 million people in Gaza, one of the world's most densely populated places, have been driven from their homes at least once, causing a humanitarian catastrophe. "Every day, there is mounting, irreparable loss of life, property, dignity, and humanity for the Palestinian people," said Adila Hassim, advocate of South Africa's high court. "Nothing will stop the suffering, except an order from this court."
