Israel and South Africa trade accusations ahead of genocide trial
- January 10, 2024
- 0
South Africa and Israel they exchanged accusations on the eve of the hearing in the highest court UN who will hear about South Africa’s accusations that Israel is
South Africa and Israel they exchanged accusations on the eve of the hearing in the highest court UN who will hear about South Africa’s accusations that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians in their offensive against the Gaza Strip.
International Court (ICJ) The Hague, also known as the World Court, will hold sessions on Thursday and Friday in a case filed in late December in which Israel is accused of failing to meet its obligations under 1948 Genocide Convention.
Both countries are parties to the Convention, which forces them not to commit genocide and also to prevent and punish it. The treaty defines genocide as “Acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”.
The politically charged hearing will focus solely on South Africa’s request for emergency measures requiring Israel suspend its military operations in Gaza While the court is examining the merits of the case, a process that can take years.
Photo: Reuters
“Our opposition to the ongoing massacre of Gazans has prompted us as a country to appeal to the International Court of Justice,” he said. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
“As a people who once tasted the bitter fruits of dispossession, discrimination, racism and state-sponsored violence, we are clear that we will remain on the right side of history,” he said.
He Israeli government spokesman Eilon Levysaid on Wednesday: “Tomorrow the State of Israel will appear before the International Court of Justice to dispel South Africa’s absurd blood libelwhile Pretoria provides political and legal cover for the violent Hamas regime.”
“On October 7, Hamas committed an act of genocide by sending death squads to invade Israel to burn, behead, torture, maim, kidnap and rape as many Israelis as possible in the most brutal manner possible. It was a campaign of systematic extermination that they vowed to continue (…) until our country was destroyed. “We are fighting to bring the monsters of October 7th to justice because ‘it will never happen again.'”
Israel launched the offensive after Hamas militants carried out a cross-border attack on October 7 in which Israel said 1,200 people were killed and 240 kidnapped.
Israeli forces have since destroyed much of the enclave and nearly all of its 2.3 million residents have been driven from their homes at least once, sparking a wave of protests. humanitarian disaster.
Photo: Reuters
IN 84 page documentSouth Africa notes that Israel has failed to provide the Gaza Strip with basic food, water, medicine, fuel, shelter and other humanitarian aid.
It also points to a sustained bombing campaign that has destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes, forced the evacuation of some 1.9 million Palestinians and more than 23,000 people died.according to Gaza health authorities.
Israel says it encourages unrestricted humanitarian assistance across Egypt’s border with the Palestinian enclave and that the evacuation was aimed at keeping civilians out of harm’s way so they could eventually return.
Group 17 judgesincluding an ad hoc judge from Israel and another judge from South Africa, will listen to the arguments of each side for three hours. A decision on temporary measures is expected later this month. The decisions of the International Court of Justice are binding, but the court does not have the power to enforce them..
In a sign of the significance of the term “genocide,” Israel sent as an ad hoc judge a former Supreme Court judge who survived the Holocaust that preceded the Genocide Convention. South Africa has named a judge who was sent to Robben Island for ten years as a young man, where he met former South African President Nelson Mandela.
Reuters
Source: Aristegui Noticias
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