South Africa launches case at International court of justice accusing Israel of genocide

South Africa launched a case Friday at the United Nations' top court accusing Israel of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and asking the court to order Israel to halt its attacks — the first such challenge made at the court over the current war. Israel swiftly rejected the filing “with disgust.”

South Africa's submission to the International Court of Justice alleges that “acts and omissions by Israel ... are genocidal in character" as they are committed with the intent “to destroy Palestinians in Gaza” as a part of the broader Palestinian national, racial and ethnic group.

South Africa has been a fierce critic of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. Many there, including President Cyril Ramaphosa, have compared Israel’s policies regarding Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank with South Africa’s past apartheid regime of racial segregation. Israel rejects such allegations.

South Africa asked The Hague-based court to issue an interim order for Israel to immediately suspend its military operations in Gaza. A hearing into that request is likely in the coming days or weeks. The case, if it goes ahead, will take years, but an interim order could be issued within weeks.

The Israeli government rejected “with disgust” the genocide accusations, calling it a “blood libel.” A Foreign Ministry statement said South Africa's case lacks a legal foundation and constitutes a “despicable and contemptuous exploitation” of the court.

Israel also accused South Africa of cooperating with Hamas, the Palestinian militant group behind the deadly Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel that triggered the ongoing war.

The statement also said Israel operates according to international law and focuses its military actions solely against Hamas, adding that the residents of Gaza are not an enemy. It asserted that it takes steps to minimize harm to civilians and to allow humanitarian aid to enter the territory.

South Africa can bring the case under the Genocide Convention because both it and Israel are signatories to it.

Whether the case will succeed in halting the war remains to be seen. While the court's orders are legally binding, they are not always followed. In March 2022, the court ordered Russia to halt hostilities in Ukraine, a binding legal ruling that Moscow flouted as it pressed ahead with its attacks.

South Africa's foreign ministry said in a statement that the country is “gravely concerned with the plight of civilians caught in the present Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip due to the indiscriminate use of force and forcible removal of inhabitants.”

The ministry added that there are “ongoing reports of international crimes, such as crimes against humanity and war crimes, being committed as well as reports that acts meeting the threshold of genocide or related crimes as defined in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, have been and may still be committed in the context of the ongoing massacres in Gaza."

South Africa's president earlier accused Israel of war crimes and acts “tantamount to genocide." And South Africa last month pushed for the International Criminal Court, which also is based in The Hague, to investigate Israel's actions in Gaza.

The ICC prosecutes individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, while the International Court of Justice settles disputes between nations.

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry welcomed South Africa's accusations against Israel. In a statement on social media, it urged the court to “immediately take action to protect Palestinian people and call on Israel, the occupying power, to halt its onslaught against the Palestinian people.”

Balkees Jarrah, associate international justice director at Human Rights Watch, said South Africa's case “provides an important opportunity for the International Court of Justice to scrutinize Israel’s actions in Gaza using the Genocide Convention of 1948." She said South Africa is looking to the United Nations’ highest judicial body "to provide clear, definitive answers on the question of whether Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people.”

Jarrah stressed that the ICJ case "is not a criminal case against individual alleged perpetrators, and it does not involve the International Criminal Court (ICC), a separate body. But the ICJ case should also propel greater international support for impartial justice at the ICC and other credible venues.”