South Africa’s decision to take Israel to the International Court of Justice on the charge of genocide against the people of Gaza has received no Western support and curiously very little air time in the Western media. While South Africa presented compelling arguments for its case, alleging indiscriminate killing of people in Gaza and destruction of infrastructure, Israel told the ICJ that it was acting in self-defence. It emphasised that it was fighting Hamas, not the Palestinian population. It urged the court to dismiss the case as groundless and reject South Africa's request to order a halt to the offensive. In the conflict, which began on October 7, 2023, around 1,300 people were killed and about 240 others were taken hostage during the Hamas attack on southern Israel. More than 23,350 people have been killed, mostly children and women, in Israel’s retaliatory attacks on Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
The court has to decide if any interim measures are to be applied as the case of genocide itself could take a long time to be adjudicated on. What is clear is that there is increasing pressure on Israel to halt its offensive, given the cruel impact on the civilian population in Gaza. The ICJ case has only highlighted the urgent need to call a halt to the hostilities. The wheel has come full circle. The setting up of Israel about seven decades ago was in the wake of the Holocaust and the unspeakable atrocities the Jewish people were subjected to under Hitler’s Nazi regime. However, in the process the Palestinian people, then under British rule, were also displaced from their homeland. The turmoil in the Middle East is set to continue as the region is subjected to the twists and turns of history. Any attempt to prosecute Israel will be met with resistance by the West, but it is important to recognise the irony of the Jewish state subjecting civilians to so much suffering.
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