From the Liveblog of
Friday, January 12, 2024
Israel readies to counter genocide accusations at International Court of Justice
THE HAGUE – Israel will respond later this morning to accusations brought by South Africa at the UN’s top court that its military operation in Gaza in response to Hamas’s October 7 terror onslaught is a state-led genocide campaign aimed at wiping out the Palestinian population.
South Africa, which filed the lawsuit at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in December, asked judges yesterday to impose emergency measures ordering Israel to immediately halt the offensive.
Israel rejects the accusations of genocide as baseless and says South Africa was acting as a mouthpiece for the Hamas terror group that seeks to eliminate the Jewish state. The IDF is targeting Hamas terrorists, not Palestinian civilians, Jerusalem says.
The 1948 Genocide Convention, enacted in the wake of the mass murder of Jews in the Nazi Holocaust, defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”
The court is expected to rule on possible emergency measures later this month but will not rule at that time on the genocide allegations with those proceedings potentially taking years.
The ICJ’s decisions are final and without appeal, but the court has no way to enforce them.
