AFRICA IS A COUNTRY
On December 28, 2023, South Africa instituted proceedings against Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). In a tightly argued and well-evidenced application, South Africa argues that since October 7, 2023, Israel has been committing genocide—and has failed to prevent genocide—against Palestinians in Gaza in violation of their obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the “Genocide Convention”).
The application, prepared by an excellent legal team, makes for harrowing reading, even for those relatively well-informed on the issue. South Africa places Israel’s actions since October 7 in the context of a history of “apartheid, expulsion, ethnic cleansing, annexation, occupation, discrimination, and the ongoing denial of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination” … “during its 75-year-long apartheid, its 56-year-long belligerent occupation of Palestinian territory and its 16-year-long blockade of Gaza.” Notably, South Africa points out that Israel has been carrying out extreme violence against Palestinians even before Hamas’s actions on October 7 (which it unequivocally condemns but notes cannot justify genocide). “Between September 29, 2000 and October 7, 2023, approximately 7,569 Palestinians, including 1,699 children,” were killed by Israel during military operations, “with tens of thousands of others injured.” During that time, Israel killed a further 214 Palestinians participating in peaceful protests and injured 36,100 Palestinians, including journalists, medics and nearly 8,800 children, who an independent commission of inquiry instituted by the United Nations Human Rights Council concluded were intentionally targeted by Israeli soldiers.
Having established this horrifying context, South Africa is particularly concerned in this application with Israel’s failure to prevent genocide, including by failing to prosecute the incitement to genocide, and Israel’s engagement in genocidal acts against Palestinians.
Under the Genocide Convention, genocide requires both action and intent. Genocidal acts are: (a) killing members of a national, ethnical, racial or religious group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; or (e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. Any one of these acts committed with the intent to destroy the group, in whole or in part, is genocide and is prohibited under international law. South Africa’s application alleges evidence of Israel’s genocidal actions in the first four of these categories.
First South Africa argues that Israel is killing Palestinians in Gaza in large numbers, with more than 21,110 Palestinians reported killed since October 7, and an estimated 7,780 people missing presumed dead. This killing has taken the form of indiscriminate and heavy bombing, summary executions, and the wiping out of entire families in their homes, in shelters, in hospitals, schools, churches, mosques, and even when fleeing along routes demarcated as safe by Israel.
