I watched part of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) hearings on genocide brought by South Africa against Israel. I am not a lawyer, but I thought that the South African case in the Hague was vague. In effect they showed no actual evidence of genocide, They only quoted statements by right wing Ministers that were only matters of opinion that had no legal significance, and by PM Netanyahu when he quoted the Bible about Amalek, not exactly strong evidence. Then they also quoted the Hamas Health Ministry number of 23,000 civilians killed, without pointing out that this includes all the combatants and terrorists that the IDF had killed (estimated now at ca. 10,000). So if 13,000 civilians have been killed that does not amount to genocide out of a population of 2.3 million. They also quoted an exchange of messages between the two states in which the S. African Minister of Justice accused Israel of genocide and Israel’s Foreign Minister asked for a meeting to discuss it. In their presentation the S. African lawyers mentioned Hamas only once, as if they did not exist in this case.
The Israeli case was much more fact-based. Not only that the Israeli lawyer pointed out that in order for the Court to have jurisdiction it requires that there be a dispute between the two countries that are both signatories to the Genocide Convention. But as mentioned, the exchange between the two countries never amounted to a dispute. There was an accusation and a request to discuss it, before S. Africa applied to the Court. Also, S. Africa wants to deny Israel the right to fight against Hamas in Gaza because it claims the IDF is committing genocide, without any evidence to support that claim. The Israeli lawyer quoted members of the War Cabinet, the only ones allowed to make actual policy for the war, that the war was solely against Hamas and not against the Palestinian people.
Of course, the most compelling evidence was the genocidal unprovoked attack by Hamas terrorists and others on Israeli sovereign territory on Oct 7, and Israel’s right under international law, that S. Africa denies, to defend itself and its citizens. Also the actions that Israel took to avoid civilian casualties: 1. Setting up humanitarian corridors for civilians to flee south to avoid areas of conflict and establishing safe zones; 2. Dropping millions of leaflets in Arabic telling the population where to go to avoid the fighting; 3. Making phone calls to hundreds of thousands of Gazans warning them that they were in danger and must move south to survive. There is a clause in the Geneva Convention of War in 1949 that says that once warnings have been issued any civilians that remain in areas of conflict and are killed cannot be regarded as deliberate killings.
Also the lawyer showed evidence of people in civilian clothing, without any form of uniform, shooting at Israeli soldiers, and multiple cases of Hamas armaments being stored and used in civilian apartments, schools, UN buildings, mosques and hospitals. They quoted the Head of one hospital as saying that Hamas terrorists operated freely from his hospital. They also showed evidence of Hamas terrorists using ambulances to get around, and the use of children and women carrying babies as lookouts. In general Hamas use the civilian population as human shields. Nevertheless the IDF has issued orders that civilians are not to be shot at unless the soldier’s life is in danger.
As far as I can judge there is no case for Israel carrying out genocide of the Palestinian population, rather this is a case of S. Africa, an ally of Hamas, bringing a political case in the ICJ because Hamas, that is not a state, cannot do so. It has also been pointed out that Palestine (the Palestine Authority) is recognized as a State by the UN, and could have brought this case itself, but did not do so. Unfortunately, although there appears to be no case for charging Israel with genocide, the connection has been made, whatever the court decides, and this will be used to deliberately tarnish Israel’s reputation, as was done previously by the infamous “Zionism is racism” resolution at the UN, that was later revoked.
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