\n<\/p>\n
The International Court of Justice, the United Nations\u2019 highest judicial body, will begin hearings this week in a case brought by South Africa that accuses Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.<\/p>\n
The hearings, the first step in a lengthy process should the case go forward, will be the first time that Israel has chosen to defend itself, in person, in such a setting, attesting to the gravity of the indictment and the high stakes for its international reputation and standing.<\/p>\n
Genocide, the term first employed by a Polish lawyer of Jewish descent in 1944 to describe the Nazis\u2019 systematic murder of about six million Jews and others based on their ethnicity, is among the most serious crimes of which a country can be accused.<\/p>\n
In its submission to the court, South Africa cited that lawyer, Raphael Lemkin, to expand the definition of genocide. South Africa, whose post-apartheid government has long supported the Palestinian cause, accused Israel of actions in Gaza against Hamas that are \u201cgenocidal in character.\u201d It says Israel has killed Palestinian civilians, inflicted serious bodily and mental harm, and created for the residents of Gaza \u201cconditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
More than 23,000 Palestinians have been killed over the past three months, a majority of them women and children, according to health officials in Gaza. And most of the enclave\u2019s 2.2 million residents have been displaced since the war began, increasing the danger of disease and hunger<\/a>, according to international organizations.<\/p>\n The allegation, which Israel categorically denies, is laden with a particular significance in Israel, a country founded in the wake of the near wholesale destruction of European Jewry and that soon after became a haven for Jews expelled by the hundreds of thousands from Arab lands.<\/p>\n Israel, a signatory to the 1948 international Convention against Genocide, is keeping the details of its defense for the court. But Israeli leaders say South Africa\u2019s allegations pervert the meaning of genocide and the purpose of the convention. A more fitting case, they say, could be brought against Hamas, an internationally labeled terrorist organization that is the target of Israel\u2019s military campaign in Gaza.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThere\u2019s nothing more atrocious and preposterous than this claim,\u201d President Isaac Herzog of Israel said on Tuesday. \u201cActually, our enemies, the Hamas, in their charter, call for the destruction and annihilation of the state of Israel, the only nation state of the Jewish people.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Ayelet Shaked, a former Israeli justice minister, called the genocide allegations a \u201cblood libel,\u201d a reference to the centuries-old antisemitic trope that Jews kill non-Jewish babies to drink their blood, and asserted that the South African government was using the case to distract its own public from their country\u2019s domestic problems.<\/p>\n The International Court of Justice adjudicates disputes between states, and the initial hearings in the Israel case will take place on Thursday and Friday in The Hague.<\/p>\n The case brings to a public forum the popular condemnation of Israel\u2019s conduct of the war in much of the developing world. In December, the U.N. General Assembly passed a nonbinding resolution, put forth by the Arab Group and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, calling for a cease-fire; and the Security Council passed a binding resolution, also promoted by Arab countries, calling for the delivery of more humanitarian aid.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n South Africa filed an 84-page<\/a> application to the court in December laying out its claims and citing statements by Israeli officials, which it says \u201cconstitute clear direct and public incitement to genocide, which has gone unchecked and unpunished.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Israelis have pointed out that some of the evidence South Africa cites is slim. Among the examples is a comment made in a television interview by an Israeli pop star, Eyal Golan, who said Israel should \u201cerase\u201d Gaza.<\/p>\n In a statement released late Tuesday, Israel\u2019s attorney general and state prosecutor said any calls for intentional harm to civilians may amount to the criminal offense of incitement. \u201cCurrently, several such cases are being examined by Israeli law enforcement authorities,\u201d the statement added.<\/p>\n South Africans have long empathized with the Palestinian people, equating their life in Gaza and under the occupation in the West Bank with the oppression suffered under apartheid. Nelson Mandela gave explicit voice to this connection, saying in a 1997 speech<\/a>, \u201cWe know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.\u201d<\/p>\n That sentiment is driving South Africa\u2019s case, said Ronald Lamola, the country\u2019s justice minister, who will lead the delegation at The Hague. \u201cWe do believe that it is important for a state like South Africa that has experienced apartheid discrimination to stand firm with the people of Palestine,\u201d he said in an interview.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Israel, for its part, says it did not choose war but was forced into it after Hamas led a cross-border assault against it on Oct. 7. About 1,200 people, most of them civilians, were killed in the attack, according to the Israeli authorities, making it the deadliest single day in Israel\u2019s 75-year history, and for Jews since the Holocaust. More than 100 of the 240 captives seized on Oct. 7 are still being held in Gaza.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n U.N. rapporteurs said in a statement<\/a> on Monday that the Hamas-led rampage, which included murder, hostage-taking, rape and mutilation, could amount to war crimes and, given their scope, perhaps also crimes against humanity.<\/p>\n A final ruling could take years, but as an emergency provision, South Africa is calling on the court to order Israel to immediately halt its military operation.<\/p>\n \u201cAll that South Africa has to do to win a provisional measures order is convince the court that its charge of genocide is \u2018plausible,\u2019\u201d said William Schabas, a former chairman of a U.N. commission of inquiry into Israel\u2019s military operations in the Gaza Strip in 2014, who is a professor of international law at Middlesex University London.<\/p>\n South Africa, Professor Schabas said, had so far only set out \u201ca skeleton of its case,\u201d and it would be months before it gathers all of its evidence. \u201cOnly then can we really assess the full strength of the South African case,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The court\u2019s decisions are typically binding, though it has few means of enforcing them. In 2004, the court issued a nonbinding opinion that Israel\u2019s construction of its security barrier inside the territory of the occupied West Bank was illegal and that it should be dismantled. Twenty years later, the system of walls and fences is still standing.<\/p>\n But Hamas cannot be a party to the case, because the International Court of Justice only deals with disputes between states. So even if the court does order Israel to halt or change its fighting, it would not be able to impose the same obligation on Hamas.<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s military insists that it is prosecuting the war in line with international law. Officials point to the millions of messages, sent by various means, telling Gaza\u2019s civilians to evacuate to safer areas ahead of bombings, and say they are constantly working to increase the amount of aid entering Gaza.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The death toll in Gaza, they say, is attributable in part to the use by Hamas of residential areas and civilian structures, including schools and hospitals, to launch attacks, store weapons and hide fighters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the chief spokesman for the military, categorically refuted the genocide accusation and said the court should instead focus on how the war started on Oct. 7. \u201cWe were the ones who were butchered,\u201d Admiral Hagari said.<\/p>\n In Israel, the case is being dealt with at the highest levels. The government has appointed one of the country\u2019s most prominent jurists, Aharon Barak, as the ad hoc judge to join the court on its behalf. (To hear the Gaza case, the court\u2019s regular 15-judge panel will be expanded to 17, with one additional judge appointed by each side.)<\/p>\n