South Africa accused Israel this Thursday of maintaining a “pattern of genocidal behavior” in the Gaza Strip with “mass murders”“forced displacement” and “serious physical or mental harm” of Palestinian civilians, an accusation made during a hearing before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), in The Hague, which is the highest court of the United Nations. The accusation has received praise from the UN and other countries that have joined in, but has been criticized by the United States. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the accusation, asserting that Israel fights “against terrorism and lies.”

The Palestinians are in “immediate risk of dying from hungerdehydration and diseases due to the siege, the destruction of Palestinian cities, the insufficient access to aid allowed to the Palestinian population and the impossibility of distributing that limited aid while the bombs fall,” warned South African lawyer Adila Hassim. In addition, she assured that Israel”has killed an incomparable and unprecedented number of civilians with full knowledge of how many civilian lives each bomb will claim”, and has demanded that the ICJ impose urgent precautionary measures on Tel Aviv to protect the Palestinians in Gaza.

Hassim listed as crimes that represent a “genocidal act” the “mass murders”, the “forced displacement” of the population of Gaza, and the “serious physical and mental damage” caused by the military offensive, in addition to what he defined as “the Israeli military attack on Gaza’s healthcare system, which makes life unsustainable.” “Palestinians in Gaza are subjected to constant bombing wherever they go: in their homes, in places where they seek refuge, hospitals, schools, mosques, churches, and while trying to find food and water for their families. They have been killed if they fail to evacuate, and in the places they flee to. And even when they try to flee through the supposed safe routes declared by Israel,” the lawyer described in her presentation.

Praise from the UN and other countries

The United Nations experts welcomed the start this Thursday of the hearings before the International Court of Justice in The Hague (ICJ) on the case that accuses Israel of genocide against the Palestinian people presented by South Africa, to whom commended for his leadership in this cause. “We commend South Africa for bringing this case to the ICJ at a time when the rights of Palestinians in Gaza are being violated with impunity,” said the experts in a statement, including the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Palestine, Francesca Albanese.

Likewise, they have recalled that any decision adopted by the court on provisional measures must be “respected and applied by the parties in dispute“, as required by the ICJ Statute. They also welcomed the statements of support from several countries for South Africa’s action to bring the case before the Court, as is the case of Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela or Brazil. “The case of South Africa has broader implications for all States (…), since all are obliged both to refrain from committing genocide and to prevent and punish it wherever it occurs,” the experts stated.

For its part, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry confirmed this Thursday your “support and endorsement” to the demand. In a statement, he has shown his “appreciation of South Africa’s positionwhich rejects the occupation authority’s (Israel) acts of unprecedented slaughter and destruction against the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian people.” Iraq, together to Jordan, it is one of the few Arab countries in the Middle East which has given public support to this procedure initiated by South Africa, at a time when several Middle Eastern nations have expressed their concern about the expansion of the Gaza war.

Unlike the vast majority of Arab countries and the international community, Iraq does not support the two-state solution because it does not recognize Israel as a country. No However, the Arab League announced on Wednesday support to the demand for “genocide” against Israel and hoped for the issuance of “a just sentence that stops this hostile war and puts an end to the shedding of Palestinian blood,” in the words of the organization’s secretary general, Ahmed Abulgueit.