The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague held the first of a two-day hearing into South Africa's genocide case against Israel over the war in Gaza.
Even as the hearing, which will run from Thursday to Friday, was taking place, the ongoing bombardment of the Gaza Strip by Israeli forces killed more than 100 Palestinians and injured nearly 200 during the last period of 24-hour report, Gaza's Health Ministry said. Thursday.
Outside the court, pro-Palestinian protesters called for an end to Israel's military operations.
These are the key takeaways from the first day of the ICJ hearing and what Friday could hold.
South Africa seeks court order against Israel to stop war
The hearing began with a reading of South Africa's case against Israel and the demand that Israel immediately suspend its military operations in Gaza as South Africa reminded the court that more than 23,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip since October 7. .
Pretoria's ambassador to the Netherlands, Vusimuzi Madonsela, said: “South Africa recognizes that the genocidal acts and permissions of the State of Israel inevitably form part of a series of illegal acts perpetrated against the people, the Palestinian people, since 1948.”
Ronald Lamola, South Africa's justice minister, said Israel's response to the Hamas attacks on October 7 in southern Israel “crossed a line.”
“No armed attack against the territory of a State, no matter how serious, even an attack involving atrocity crimes, can justify or defend violations of human rights.” [1948 Genocide] Convention, whether it is a question of law or morality,” he said.
Lamola added that the case presented the court with an opportunity to act in real time to prevent the genocide in Gaza from continuing by issuing a court order.
List of 'genocidal acts'
Adila Hassim, a defender of South Africa's case, exposed what she said were a series of violations of the Genocide Convention, to which Israel is a party.
“South Africa maintains that Israel has transgressed article 2 of the convention by committing actions that fall within the definition of genocide. The actions show systematic patterns of behavior from which genocide can be inferred,” he stated.
Hassim then listed a series of “genocidal acts” committed by Israel.
The “first genocidal act is the mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza,” he said while showing photographs of mass graves where “often unidentified” bodies were buried. No one, including newborns, was spared, she added.
The second genocidal act was serious bodily or mental harm inflicted on Palestinians in Gaza in violation of Article 2B of the Genocide Convention, Hassim argued. Israel's attacks have left nearly 60,000 Palestinians injured and maimed, most of them women and children. Hassim argued that large numbers of Palestinian civilians, including children, have been arrested, blindfolded, forced to strip, loaded onto trucks and taken to unknown locations.
Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, a second lawyer representing South Africa, argued that “Israel's political leaders, military commanders and people holding official positions have consistently and in explicit terms declared their genocidal intent.”
Ngcukaitobi recalled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's comments on October 28, urging ground troops preparing to enter Gaza to “remember what Amalek has done to them.” “This refers to God's biblical order to Saul to destroy an entire group of people in retaliation,” the lawyer said.
Other members of the Knesset repeatedly called for Gaza to be razed, flattened, erased and crushed, the lawyer argued. “The soldiers believe this language and their actions are acceptable because the destruction of Palestinian life in Gaza is an articulated state policy,” Ngcukaitobi said.
Do Israel's actions violate the Genocide Convention?
The hearing then moved on to address the question of jurisdiction. John Dugard, a South African international law professor, noted that the obligations under the Genocide Convention are “erga omnes obligations, obligations owed to the international community as a whole.”
“States parties to this convention are obliged not only to desist from genocidal acts but also to prevent them,” Dugard said. He added that South Africa attempted to contact the Israeli government through the embassy before filing the case.
Max du Plessis, another lawyer representing South Africa, said that UN agencies and experts, as well as human rights organizations, institutions and states “have collectively considered the acts committed by Israel as genocidal or, at the very least, have warned that the Palestinian people [are] at risk of genocide.”
South Africa's legal representatives reminded the court that at this stage it does not “have to determine whether or not Israel has acted contrary to its obligations under the Genocide Convention” because this can only be done “at the merits stage”.
Israel has repeatedly argued that it is acting in self-defense after Hamas fighters entered its territory on October 7, killing 1,139 people and taking more than 200 captive.
In what appeared to be a preemptive argument intended to mitigate Israel's calls for Hamas to be tried under international law, the South African delegation noted that Hamas is not a state and cannot be a party to the Genocide Convention or the procedures from The Hague.
When will Israel present its arguments?
After three hours of detailed descriptions of what South Africa called a compelling case of genocide, the court adjourned.
The hearing will resume on Friday to hear Israel's oral arguments.
Thomas MacManus, senior lecturer in state crime at the School of Law at Queen Mary University of London, told Al Jazeera that the South African case was “very impressive”. “They very concisely laid out some devastating allegations tied together in a legally sound way,” MacManus said.
Lior Haiat, a spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, called Thursday's hearing one of the “largest displays of hypocrisy in history, compounded by a series of false and unfounded claims.”
He then accused South Africa of trying to allow Hamas to return to Israel to “commit war crimes.”
While any ICJ ruling may have little bearing on the war itself, one in favor of South Africa and the Palestinians would put significant pressure on Israel's main backer: the United States.
