Agencies
Saturday, January 13, 2024
Israel reiterated yesterday that it does not intend to “destroy” the Palestinian people, saying that the genocide case filed by South Africa against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is “totally distorted” and does not reflect the reality of the conflict in the Strip. loop.
“If there were acts of genocide, they were committed against Israelis,” said Tal Becker, one of the Israeli lawyers, describing the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks that sparked the Israeli response in Gaza.
In December, South Africa filed an emergency complaint with the United Nations' highest judicial body in The Hague, arguing that Israel had violated the Convention for the Prevention of Genocide, signed in 1948 after the Holocaust. It presented its arguments to the court on Thursday.
South Africa “unfortunately presented the court with a completely distorted factual and legal picture,” explained Becker. “His arguments are based on a deliberately organized, decontextualized and manipulative description of the reality of current hostilities,” the lawyer added.
“What Israel aims to do with its operation in Gaza is not the destruction of a city, but rather the protection of its own city, which is under attack on several fronts,” emphasized the lawyer. Becker described the “large-scale massacre, mutilations, rapes and kidnappings” carried out by Hamas on October 7, and stated that “if there were acts of genocide, they were committed against Israel.”
The lawyer played a recording in an Israeli kibbutz on Oct. 7 of a Hamas terrorist bragging about killing Jews and showed a television interview in which a Hamas official, Ghazi Hamad, promises that the attack was carried out by October 7th was just the beginning and he promises to start “a second, a third, a fourth” until the country is “wiped out”.
For Israel's defenders, South Africa's lawsuit should be dismissed “as what it is: a pamphlet.” Becker emphasized: “Hamas has systematically and illegally integrated its military structure into schools, mosques, hospitals and other sensitive locations. This is a planned and vile method of war. “Israel is fighting against the inhumanity of Hamas.”
The aim of the South African appeal is for the International Court of Justice judges to order an immediate end to the military campaign launched by Israel in Gaza following the October 7 attack.
Israel and the United States, its main ally, rejected the case submitted to the International Court of Justice, saying it lacked merit. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed South Africa's accusations after Thursday's hearing, saying Hamas, not his country, was committing “genocide.”
“Israel has the right to defend itself,” said Matthew Miller, a US State Department spokesman. “Israel operates in an exceptionally difficult environment in Gaza, an urban battlefield where Hamas deliberately hides behind civilians.”
The ICJ could decide in a few weeks. The court's decision is binding, but the court has no power to ensure implementation. After Russia's invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, the court ordered Moscow to halt its operations to no avail.
“He crossed a line.” The court will not decide on the background of the case, i.e. whether Israel is committing genocide, but on whether the population of Gaza is in danger. South Africa's appeal is based on the fact that both countries are signatories to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. South African Justice Minister Ronald Lamola argued in The Hague on Thursday that Israel's response to the Oct. 7 attacks had “crossed a line.”
“No armed attack on the territory of a State, no matter how serious, justifies a violation of the Convention,” he said. “Genocides are never declared in advance, but this court has before it the evidence from the last 13 weeks that irrefutably demonstrates a pattern of behavior and intent that justifies a credible allegation of acts of genocide,” said Adila Hassim, one of South Africa’s lawyers.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Lior Haiat accused South Africa of acting as a “legal wing” of Hamas and called the allegations “one of the greatest spectacles of hypocrisy in history.”