South Africa: Israel undermining World Court with campaign of ‘starvation’ in Gaza
Pretoria’s foreign minister claims provisional measures passed down by the ICJ in January have been ‘entirely ignored,’ says this sets a ‘precedent’ for others to do the same
South Africa’s top diplomat on Tuesday accused Israel of setting a precedent for leaders to defy the top UN court, as she again alleged a campaign of “starvation” in Gaza amid Israel’s war against Hamas.
South Africa hauled Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) late last year to allege it is committing genocide in the war, which was started by the Hamas terror organization when it attacked southern Israel on October 7, infuriating Israel and drawing US criticism.
Naledi Pandor, South Africa’s foreign minister, said Tuesday that Israel had defied the January ruling by the ICJ in which it found “plausibility” in the claims that Palestinians require protection from genocide.
The ruling required Israel to report to the court short-term, detailing the measures it is taking to comply with the order to prevent actions that could violate clauses of the Genocide Convention.
“The provisional measures have been entirely ignored by Israel,” Pandor claimed at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace during a visit to the US capital Washington.
“We’re seeing mass starvation now and famine before our very eyes,” she said. “I think we, as humanity, need to look at ourselves in horror and dismay and to be really worried that we have set an example.”
Pandor added that Israel’s actions may mean other nations believe that “there’s license — I can do what I want and I will not be stopped.”
She said that South Africa’s post-apartheid democracy — in going through international institutions — was “merely practicing what is preached to us every day” by the West.
“The ICJ has not been respected. And the day an African disrespects [it], I hope we don’t go to that leader and say, ‘Listen, you’re out of bounds — because you’re an African, we expect you to obey,'” she said.
Earlier in March, South Africa again approached the ICJ to request additional preliminary measures against Israel, “in light of the new facts and changes in the situation in Gaza — particularly the situation of widespread starvation — brought about by the continuing egregious breaches” of the convention by Israel.
Among the preliminary measures requested by South Africa was an emergency order for Israel to step up humanitarian aid to address what aid organizations warn is a looming famine.
In response, Israel asked the court not to issue such a measure, and dismissed the request for it as “morally repugnant.”
In the legal filing made public on Monday, Israel said it “has real concern for the humanitarian situation and innocent lives, as demonstrated by the actions it has and is taking” in Gaza during the war.
Lawyers for Israel denied allegations of deliberately causing humanitarian suffering in the enclave, where hunger is rising, and said South Africa’s repeated requests for additional measures were an abuse of procedures.
The filing said South Africa’s accusations in its request for new measures, filed March 6, are “wholly unfounded in fact and law, morally repugnant, and represent an abuse both of the Genocide Convention and of the court itself.”
Aid groups say all of Gaza is mired in a humanitarian crisis, with the situation in the largely isolated north standing out. Many of the estimated 300,000 people still living in northern Gaza have been reduced to eating animal fodder to survive, according to some accounts.
The UN says that one in six children under the age of 2 in the north suffers from acute malnutrition. In total, around 1.1 million people — about half the population — are said to be experiencing “catastrophic” hunger.
The war began with a Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, in which thousands of Palestinian terrorists killed around 1,200 people and took 253 hostages. More than 100 of them were released during a weeklong temporary ceasefire in November, leaving 130 people captive in Gaza, of whom 33 are no longer alive, according to Israeli military intelligence.
Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry has said that more than 31,800 people have been killed since the start of the war, a figure that cannot be independently verified and includes some 13,000 Hamas terrorists Israel says it has killed in battle. Israel also says it killed some 1,000 gunmen inside Israel on October 7.
The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its tallies. But it claims women and children make up around two-thirds of those killed.
