2024-01-11 18:30:19
The International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, is examining the complaint filed by South Africa once morest the Jewish state.
South Africa accuses Israel of genocide in Gaza. This Thursday (11.01.24), pro-Israeli demonstrators gathered in front of the court to protest, chanting slogans such as: “It’s not a genocide, it’s a war.”
In its 84-page request, South Africa condemns “unequivocally” the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023 on Israeli civilians.
But, she accuses the Israeli army of carrying out actions in Gaza which would be intended, I quote, “to bring regarding the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnic group“.
South Africa accuses Israel of violating the UN convention on genocide. She calls on the Court to order Israel to “immediately suspend its military operations” in the Gaza Strip.
Several pro-Israeli demonstrators gathered in front of the International Court of Justice Image: Robin Utrecht/ANP/AFP/Getty Images
The representatives of the Israeli State will be heard this Friday, January 12 by the Court.
But already, the government has described this affair as “absurd and atrocious”. Israel accuses South Africa of behaving as “the legal arm of the terrorist organization Hamas”, in the words of a statement from the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
Adama Dieng, former advisor to the UN Secretary General for the prevention of genocide, specifies that“we have to make a difference“between armed attacks targeting civilian installations, and which kill civilian populations in violation of international humanitarian law, and genocide.
He explains that“It is very important to remember that the crime of genocide is a crime of identity. It is the extermination, in part, or in whole, of a group, because of its racial, religious, ethnic or national identity .”
Pretoria urgently seized the ICJ to order Israel to “suspend its military operations” in the Gaza StripImage: REMKO DE WAAL/ANP/AFP/Getty Images
To date, the United Nations officially recognizes only three genocides: that of the Armenians committed by the Ottoman Empire in 1915-1916, the genocide of the Jews committed by the Nazis between 1941 and 1945 and the genocide of the Tutsis committed in Rwanda. In 1994.
The Srebrenica massacre, which left 8,000 victims in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1995, was also described as genocide by the ICTY and the International Court of Justice. This designation is, however, contested by some historians. Finally, there are the crimes perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979 once morest minorities and which are said to have left nearly two million dead.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators also gathered in front of the ICJ Image: Robin Utrecht/ANP/AFP/Getty Images
Links between the ANC and Palestine
South Africa is home to the largest Jewish community in sub-Saharan Africa. But the country has a much larger Muslim population, part of which might support the authorities’ approach to international justice.
The ruling ANC in South Africa has long supported the Palestinian cause. Then president of the Rainbow Nation, Nelson Mandela affirmed that the freedom of South Africa would be “incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”
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