Gaza genocide is ‘plausible’, but does not order a cease-fire
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The highest court at the UN said on Friday that Israel must take action to prevent genocide by its troops in Gaza, and that it must allow more aid into the enclave. But the court did not call on Israel to immediately suspend its military campaign.
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The court ordered Israel to take certain precautions to prevent destruction and preservation of evidence relating to the charge of genocide. The court gave Israel 30 days to report back on measures taken.
The officials at Israel lashed out at the court, denying the genocide charges. Mr. Netanyahu said it was “outrageous” for the judges even to hear the case, while Defense Minister Yoav Gallant — whose words the judges noted when discussing whether Israeli officials had made statements that constituted incitement to genocide — said his country did not need “to be lectured on morality.”
Before delivering the ruling, Donoghue read statements from Israeli officials which she said made South Africa’s case plausible. She gave a gloomy assessment of the situation in Gaza.
This is only the second time a state has tried to litigate a charge of genocide against another. In 2019, The Gambia took Myanmar to the ICJ, accusing it of a genocide against the Rohingya. Emergency measures were approved by the court but the state ignored them.
The U.N. and South African Legal Team Reports the “Mass, Hunger, Food Blockades and Deflicted Devastation of the Gaza Strip”
According to the United Nations, more than 25,000 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip and most of the buildings have been damaged. More than four in five residents there have been displaced from their homes, the health system has collapsed, and the U.N. has repeatedly warned of a looming famine.
Hassim accused Israel of perpetrating against the Palestinians in Gaza. This included what she called the “mass” and indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians, food blockades and the wholesale destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system and infrastructure.
Almost 85% of the people living in Gaza have been forced to flee their homes, she said.
It was deliberately inflicted. No one is getting away with anything. Not even newborn babies. The scale of Palestinian child killings in Gaza is such that U.N. chiefs have described it as a ‘graveyard for children,'” Hassim said.
“Entire multi-generational families will be destroyed”, said an Irish lawyer who is involved in South Africa’s legal team. She warned that if Israel continued to assault the Palestinian population in Gaza, more children would be orphans.
The South African legal team also argued that genocidal intent is shown not only in the way in which Israel has conducted its campaign in Gaza, but also in comments made by Israeli officials and leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Becker told the court that it was “impossible to understand the armed conflict in Gaza without appreciating the nature of the threat that Israel is facing.”
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and Human Rights vs. the State of the Game: Israel’s Case against the Hamas-Legered Attack
The U.N. aid agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, said it is investigating charges that several of its workers were involved in the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7 — allegations that prompted the United States to temporarily suspend aid to the agency.
The Israeli military ordered the relocation of tens of thousands of Palestinians who were already displaced and were staying in a United Nations center in the south of Gaza. More than a million people have fled southern Gaza due to Israel’s ground offensive.
The White House is sending William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, to Europe to meet with senior officials from Israel, Egypt and Qatar in an effort to advance negotiations over the release of hostages held in Gaza and a longer cease-fire. U.S. officials who described Mr. Burns’s trip said there is a new opening for talks because Israel appears willing to agree to a longer pause in fighting as part of any further hostage releases.
Some people criticized the judges for not ordering a halt to the war, while the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said the court had ruled in favor of humanity and international law.
The World Court did not make a ruling on the merits of the case brought by the Republic of South Africa but it will take years for the case to be decided.
For many Israelis, the fact that a state founded in the aftermath of the Holocaust had been accused of genocide was “one hell of a symbol,” Alon Pinkas, an Israeli political commentator and former ambassador, said after the ruling by the court in The Hague.
He pointed out that the concept of genocide, not even atrocity, not disproportionate force or war crime, but genocide, is very uncomfortable.
Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister whose inflammatory statements about the war were cited by the court in the preamble to its ruling, called the court’s ruling antisemitic.
Mr. Gallant said that Israel doesn’t need to be lectured on morality in order to differentiate between terrorists and civilians in Gaza.
Still, the court’s instructions might give momentum and political cover to Israeli officials who have been pushing internally to temper the military’s actions in Gaza and alleviate the humanitarian disaster in the territory, according to Janina Dill, an expert on international law at Oxford University.
“Any dissenting voices in the Israeli government and Israeli military who disagree with how the war has been conducted so far have now been given a really powerful strategic argument to ask for a change in course,” Professor Dill said.
For Professor Dill, the case also prompted reflection “about the human condition,” given how Israel was founded in part to prevent genocide against the Jewish people.
Against that complex backdrop, Mr. Barak chose to vote against several of the measures passed by the court. Observers who expected him to side with Israel on all of the points were surprised he joined his colleagues in calling on Israel to allow more aid into Gaza.
According to Mr. Barak, that course would have left Israel “defenseless in the face of a brutal assault, unable to fulfill its most basic duties vis-à-vis its citizens.”
“It talks like genocide & walks like genocide,” Muhammad Shehada, a rights activist from Gaza, wrote on social media. “No need to stop the genocidal war though! All good?
Six hours after the court’s ruling, the Gazan Health Ministry released the latest casualty figures from the war. An additional 200 Gazans had been killed in the past 24 hours, the ministry said on Friday evening.
