South Africa has formally accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians and pleaded with the United Nations’ top court to order an immediate halt to Israeli military operations in Gaza.
Israel, which was founded in the aftermath of the Holocaust, has vehemently denied the allegations.
As a sign of how seriously they regard the case, Israeli leaders have taken the rare step of engaging with the court to defend their international reputation.
Israel often boycotts international tribunals or UN investigations, saying they are unfair and biased.
During opening arguments at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), South African lawyers said the latest Gaza war is part of decades of Israeli oppression of Palestinians.
The court “has the benefit of the past 13 weeks of evidence that shows incontrovertibly a pattern of conduct and related intention” that amounts to “a plausible claim of genocidal acts”, South African lawyer Adila Hassim told the judges and audience in a packed room of the Peace Palace in The Hague.
Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu condemned the case and vowed to continue fighting Hamas, the militant group whose fighters stormed through Israeli communities on October 7th and killed some 1,200 people, mainly civilians.
“This is an upside-down world – the state of Israel is accused of genocide while it is fighting genocide,” he said in a video statement.
“The hypocrisy of South Africa screams to the heavens.”
The two-day hearing is the public side of one of the most significant cases ever heard in an international court.
The dispute goes to the core of one of the world’s most intractable conflicts.
South Africa is seeking preliminary orders to compel Israel to stop its military campaign in Gaza, where more than 23,000 people have died, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which is run by Hamas.
“Nothing will stop the suffering except an order from this court,” she said.
Israel has focused attention on the October 7th attacks, when Hamas fighters stormed through several communities and killed some 1,200 people, mainly civilians.
They abducted around 250 others, nearly half of whom have been released.
Although the court’s findings are considered binding, it was unclear whether Israel would heed any order to halt the fighting.
If it does not, it could face UN sanctions, although those may be blocked by a US veto.
The White House declined to comment on how it might respond if the court determines Israel committed genocide.
But National Security Council spokesman John Kirby called the allegations “unfounded”.
“That’s not a word that ought to be thrown around lightly, and we certainly don’t believe that it applies here,” Mr Kirby said.
Israel says it is battling a fierce enemy that carried out the deadliest attack on its territory since its creation in 1948.
Israeli leaders insist they are following international law and doing their utmost to avoid harm to civilians.
The country blames Hamas for the high death toll, saying its enemy operates in residential areas.
In a post on X after the hearing, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Lior Haiat called South Africa’s presentation “one of the greatest shows of hypocrisy” and referred to the legal team as “Hamas’s representatives in court”.
He said South African lawyers distorted the reality in Gaza through a series of “baseless and false claims”.
He did not elaborate.
That reaction came after South Africa insisted Israel committed genocide by design.
“The scale of destruction in Gaza, the targeting of family homes and civilians, the war being a war on children, all make clear that genocidal intent is both understood and has been put into practice. The articulated intent is the destruction of Palestinian life,” said lawyer Tembeka Ngcukaitobi.
He said the case’s “distinctive feature” was “the reiteration and repetition of genocidal speech throughout every sphere of the state in Israel”.
Ahead of the proceedings, hundreds of pro-Israeli protesters marched close to the courthouse with banners saying “Bring them home”, referring to the hostages still being held by Hamas.
One of the Israeli protesters was Michael Nevy, 42, whose brother was kidnapped by Hamas.
“People are talking about what Israel is doing, but Hamas is committing crime against humanity every day,” he said.
At a separate demonstration nearby, pro-Palestinian protesters waved flags calling for an end to “Israeli apartheid” and the adoption of a ceasefire.
Chanting by protesters on the streets around the court’s manicured grounds could sometimes be heard in the courtroom.
The case targets the centre of Israeli identity and the country’s creation as a Jewish state in the aftermath of the Nazi Holocaust, which killed six million Jews.
It also evokes issues central to South Africa’s own identity: its governing party, the African National Congress, has long compared Israel’s policies in Gaza and the West Bank to its own history under the apartheid regime of white minority rule, which restricted most blacks to “homelands” before ending in 1994.
Israel, which has sent a strong legal team to make its defence, will address the court on Friday.
A decision on South Africa’s request for so-called “provisional measures” will probably take weeks.
The case is likely to last years.
South Africa sought to broaden the case beyond the Israel-Hamas war.
South African justice minister Ronald Lamola said: “The violence and the destruction in Palestine and Israel did not begin on October 7th, 2023.
“The Palestinians have experienced systematic oppression and violence for the last 76 years.”
About two-thirds of the dead in Gaza are women and children, health officials in Hamas-ruled Gaza say.
The death toll does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.
“Mothers, fathers, children, siblings, grandparents, aunts, cousins are often all killed together. This killing is nothing short of destruction of Palestinian life. It is inflicted deliberately. No-one is spared. Not even newborn babies,” said Ms Hassim.
Finding food, water, medicine and working bathrooms has become a daily struggle for Palestinians in Gaza.
Last week, the UN humanitarian chief called Gaza “uninhabitable” and said Palestinians were “facing the highest levels of food insecurity ever recorded”.
Famine is “around the corner”.
The world court, which rules on disputes between nations, has never judged a country to be responsible for genocide.
The closest it came was in 2007 when it ruled that Serbia “violated the obligation to prevent genocide” in the July 1995 massacre by Bosnian Serb forces of more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica.
The nearby International Criminal Court prosecutes individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
The case against Israel revolves around the Genocide Convention that was drawn up in 1948 following the Second World War.
Both Israel and South Africa were signatories.
Israel will be back on the International Court of Justice’s docket next month, when hearings open into a UN request for an advisory opinion on the legality of Israeli policies in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
