Accused of committing genocide against Palestinians, Israel planned to defend its war in Gaza in front of the United Nations' highest court Friday, a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasted the allegations as hypocrisy that “screams to the heavens.”
Israel, which was founded in the aftermath of the Holocaust, has vehemently denied the accusations brought by South Africa in one of the biggest cases ever to come before an international court. South African lawyers asked the court Thursday to order an immediate halt to Israeli military operations in the besieged coastal territory that is home to 2.3 million Palestinians.
Israel often boycotts international tribunals and U.N. investigations, saying they are unfair and biased. But, in a sign of how seriously they regard the case, Israeli leaders have taken the rare step of sending a legal team and engaging with the International Court of Justice to defend their reputation.
South African lawyers argued that the war is part of decades of Israeli oppression of Palestinians.
“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,” lawyer Tembeka Ngcukaitobi said in opening statements Thursday.
The case’s “distinctive feature” was “the reiteration and repetition of genocidal speech throughout every sphere of the state in Israel,” he said.
Netanyahu vowed to continue fighting Hamas, the militant group whose fighters stormed through Israeli communities on Oct. 7 and killed some 1,200 people, mainly civilians. The assailants also abducted around 250 people, nearly half of whom have been released.
“This is an upside-down world — the state of Israel is accused of genocide while it is fighting genocide,” Netanyahu said Thursday in a video statement. “The hypocrisy of South Africa screams to the heavens."
The case strikes at the heart of Israel’s national identity and goes to the core of one of the world's most intractable conflicts.
More than 23,000 people in Gaza have died during the military campaign, according to the the Health Ministry in the territory, which is run by Hamas.
“Nothing will stop the suffering except an order from this court,” South African lawyer Adila Hassim told the judges in a packed room of the Peace Palace in The Hague.
A decision on South Africa's request for “provisional measures” will probably take weeks. The full case is likely to last years.
Israel launched its massive air and ground assault on Gaza soon after Hamas' deadly attack. Three months later, the offensive has driven nearly 85% of Gaza’s population from their homes.
With only a trickle of food, water, medicine and other supplies entering through an Israeli siege, a quarter of the territory's residents face starvation. And much of northern Gaza, including Gaza City, has been reduced to a moonscape.
Although the court's findings are considered binding, it was unclear whether Israel would heed any order to halt the fighting. If it doesn’t, it could face U.N. sanctions, although those may be blocked by a United States veto.
The White House declined to comment on how it might respond if the court determines Israel committed genocide. But National Security Council spokesperson 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,” Kirby said.
Israel says it is battling a fierce enemy that carried out the deadliest attack on its territory since the country was founded in 1948. Israeli leaders insist they are following international law and doing their utmost to avoid harm to civilians. Israel blames Hamas for the high death toll, saying the militants operate in residential areas.
In a post on X after the hearing, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lior Haiat called South Africa's presentation “one of the greatest shows of hypocrisy” and referred to the legal team as “Hamas’ 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.
The case targets the center of Israeli identity, which is rooted in the country's creation as a Jewish state after the Nazi slaughter of 6 million Jews during World War II.
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 Black people to “homelands” before ending in 1994.
South Africa sought to broaden the case beyond the Israel-Hamas war.
“The violence and the destruction in Palestine and Israel did not begin on Oct. 7, 2023. The Palestinians have experienced systematic oppression and violence for the last 76 years,” said South African Justice Minister Ronald Lamola.
“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 South African lawyer Hassim.
About two-thirds of the dead in Gaza are women and children, according to health officials there. The death toll does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.
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.
Israel will be back on the International Court of Justice's docket in February, when hearings open into a U.N. request for an advisory opinion on the legality of Israeli policies in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
