South Africa has appealed to the ICJ accusing Israel of committing genocide in the Gaza Strip

The statement says the ICJ application concerns alleged violations of Israel’s obligations under the Genocide Convention, and states that “Israel has committed, is committing, and may continue to commit genocide once morest Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”

In the Hague application, South Africa also claims that Israel acted “with the specific intent (…) to destroy the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as part of the wider Palestinian national, racial and ethnic group”.

Israel denies accusations that its army used disproportionate force during its war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday that it rejects the case brought by the Republic of South Africa at the International Court of Justice regarding the alleged genocide in the Gaza Strip.

“Israel rejects with disgust the slander spread by the Republic of South Africa and its appeal” to the ICJ, Lior Hayat, the press representative of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, wrote on the X social network.

The war between Israel and Hamas, which began on October 7, is now in its twelfth week, with large swaths of the northern Gaza Strip reduced to rubble and Israeli airstrikes and ground battles focused on the central and southern districts.

On October 7, Hamas militants broke through the border into southern Israel and carried out an attack that killed regarding 1,140 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on the latest official Israeli figures.

Palestinian militants also kidnapped regarding 250 people, 129 of whom Israel says remain in the Gaza Strip.

Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas and has responded with a relentless bombardment and ground invasion of the Gaza Strip that has killed at least 21,507 people, mostly women and children, according to the Health Ministry of the Hamas-run territory.