{"id":10361,"date":"2023-12-31T15:35:09","date_gmt":"2023-12-31T15:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/?p=10361"},"modified":"2023-12-31T15:35:09","modified_gmt":"2023-12-31T15:35:09","slug":"south-africa-launches-case-at-top-un-court-accusing-israel-of-genocide-in-gaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/10361\/south-africa-launches-case-at-top-un-court-accusing-israel-of-genocide-in-gaza\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa launches case at top UN court accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Africa launched a case Friday at the United Nations\u2019 top court\u00a0accusing Israel<\/span>\u00a0of genocide against Palestinians in\u00a0Gaza<\/span>\u00a0and asking the court to order Israel to halt its attacks \u2014 the first such challenge made at the court over the current war. Israel swiftly rejected the filing \u201cwith disgust.\u201d<\/p>\n

South Africa\u2019s submission to the International Court of Justice alleges that \u201cacts and omissions by Israel … are genocidal in character\u201d as they are committed with the intent \u201cto destroy Palestinians in Gaza\u201d as a part of the broader Palestinian national, racial and ethnic group.<\/p>\n

South Africa has been a fierce critic of Israel\u2019s military campaign in Gaza. Many there,\u00a0including President Cyril Ramaphosa<\/span>, have compared Israel\u2019s policies regarding Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank with South Africa\u2019s past apartheid regime of racial segregation. Israel rejects such allegations.<\/p>\n

South Africa asked The Hague-based court to issue an interim order for Israel to immediately suspend its military operations in Gaza. A hearing into that request is likely in the coming days or weeks. The case, if it goes ahead, will take years, but an interim order could be issued within weeks.<\/p>\n

The Israeli government rejected \u201cwith disgust\u201d the genocide accusations, calling it a \u201cblood libel.\u201d A Foreign Ministry statement said South Africa\u2019s case lacks a legal foundation and constitutes a \u201cdespicable and contemptuous exploitation\u201d of the court.<\/p>\n

Israel also accused South Africa of cooperating with Hamas, the Palestinian militant group behind the deadly Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel that triggered the ongoing war.<\/p>\n

The statement also said Israel operates according to international law and focuses its military actions solely against Hamas, adding that the residents of Gaza are not an enemy. It asserted that it takes steps to minimize harm to civilians and to allow humanitarian aid to enter the territory.<\/p>\n

South Africa can bring the case under the Genocide Convention because both it and Israel are signatories to it.<\/p>\n

Whether the case will succeed in halting the war remains to be seen. While the court\u2019s orders are legally binding, they are not always followed. In March 2022, the court ordered\u00a0Russia to halt hostilities<\/span>\u00a0in Ukraine, a binding legal ruling that Moscow flouted as it pressed ahead with its attacks.<\/p>\n

South Africa\u2019s foreign ministry said in a statement that the country is \u201cgravely concerned with the plight of civilians caught in the present Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip due to the indiscriminate use of force and forcible removal of inhabitants.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ministry added that there are \u201congoing reports of international crimes, such as crimes against humanity and war crimes, being committed as well as reports that acts meeting the threshold of genocide or related crimes as defined in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, have been and may still be committed in the context of the ongoing massacres in Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n

South Africa\u2019s president earlier accused Israel of war crimes and acts \u201ctantamount to genocide.\u201d And South Africa last month pushed for the\u00a0International Criminal Court<\/span>, which also is based in The Hague, to investigate Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza.<\/p>\n

The ICC prosecutes individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, while the International Court of Justice settles disputes between nations.<\/p>\n

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry welcomed South Africa\u2019s accusations against Israel. In a statement on social media, it urged the court to \u201cimmediately take action to protect Palestinian people and call on Israel, the occupying power, to halt its onslaught against the Palestinian people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Balkees Jarrah, associate international justice director at Human Rights Watch, said South Africa\u2019s case \u201cprovides an important opportunity for the International Court of Justice to scrutinize Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza using the Genocide Convention of 1948.\u201d She said South Africa is looking to the United Nations\u2019 highest judicial body \u201cto provide clear, definitive answers on the question of whether Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jarrah stressed that the ICJ case \u201cis not a criminal case against individual alleged perpetrators, and it does not involve the International Criminal Court (ICC), a separate body. But the ICJ case should also propel greater international support for impartial justice at the ICC and other credible venues.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Africa launched a case Friday at the United Nations\u2019 top court\u00a0accusing Israel\u00a0of genocide against Palestinians in\u00a0Gaza\u00a0and asking the court to order Israel to halt its attacks \u2014 the first such challenge made at the court over the current war. Israel swiftly rejected the filing \u201cwith disgust.\u201d South Africa\u2019s submission to the International Court of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10362,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":3,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"AP","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"0","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"0","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"0","show_popup_post":"0","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,1129,30],"tags":[1586,122,1905],"class_list":["post-10361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-security","category-southern-africa","tag-gaza","tag-south-africa","tag-un-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}