Israel experienced a national tragedy on the second day of hearings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the war in Gaza. On Friday, January 12, the radio broadcast the arguments of the country's lawyers before the highest court of the United Nations. On December 29, 2023, South Africa filed a complaint against the Jewish state, accusing it of violating the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Few, very few Israelis believe this complaint is justified.
Also read: Article reserved for our subscribers Israel-Hamas war: South Africa takes international legal action for “genocide”
A few hundred signed the South African petition, often anonymously. These are the same people who try to protest in the streets against the war, at rallies that provoke hostile reactions from passers-by and which the police still banned on Saturday in Haifa (North), on the grounds that they could not guarantee safety. The right condemns these hearings. The state is outraged. The Center, like journalist Nadav Eyal, sees it as “a perversion” and regrets that the country has already “lost” by the simple fact that they are taking place.
This refusal is due to the widespread perception that this is a war of “necessity,” imposed by Hamas, and remains defensive regardless of how it is waged. It is the horror of the attack on October 7, 2023, the worst massacre of Jews since the Shoah, that is shaking the raison d'être of the protective state. “If there were acts of genocide, they were committed against Israel,” said the Jewish state’s legal adviser, Tal Becker, at the opening of the hearing.
Claiming: “South Africa has maintained close ties with Hamas, even since October 7.” [2023] Mr. Becker denounced an approach that would “give Hamas the opportunity to get away with these murders.” During three hours of arguments, Israel tried to persuade the 17 judges to reject the “interim measures” requested by Pretoria. In particular, South Africa calls on them to urgently order Israel to “suspend” its military operation, to improve the living conditions of Gazans by opening access to humanitarian aid and to allow commissions of inquiry into the territory.
“There is no genocidal intent”
It is the intention that underlies the crime of genocide and makes it concrete. Responding to South Africa's January 11 briefs, Israeli lawyers said that despite the 23,000 deaths and the displacement of 2 million people, the systematic destruction of the enclave and the partial siege of Gaza, the state does not intend to exterminate the Palestinians in Gaza, which remains the subject of the crisis, which sparked famine, raised fears of the spread of disease and threatened to force Gazans to flee to Egypt's Sinai. The Israeli adviser rejected this estimate of deaths provided by the health ministry of the Hamas-run enclave, although the Israeli army itself no longer questions it.
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