Lerato Mbhiza
Israel on Friday argued in response to the South African charge against it at the International Court of Justice in Hague, Netherlands under the 948 Genocide Convention that it didn’t start the war but was defending itself from the violence visited upon it by Hamas’s 7 October where 1 200 people were killed and 240 were abducted.
Israel was making its submission at the second day of the ICJ hearings at the Peace Palace in The Hague, where it maintained its stance that its retaliatory attacks on Gaza for the past three months, were in self defence.
The two-day hearing at the ICJ was brought by the South African government to try and stop the genocide perpetrated by Israel in Gaza where almost 30 000 people have been killed, almost half of them children and almost 2 million displaced, since Israel’s war with Hamas started in October 2023.
Ironically the 1948 Genocide Convention statute was promulgated after the genocide of six millions Jews by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany.
Top South African legal minds including Advocate Tembela Ngcukaitobi SC, John Dugard, AdilaHassim and Vaughan Lowe among others, had taken the stand on Thursday in a case that has drawn international attention. On Friday it was Israel’s turn to be heard and the Zionist State was represented by one of its top lawyers Tal Becker.
Becker argued that Israel has the “inherent right to take all legitimate measures to defend its citizens and secure the release of hostages (taken by Hamas during the 7 October siege)”.
Becker reiterated that the right for Israel to defend itself is not in doubt and described South Africa’s request for the suspension of Israel’s military operation in Gaza as amounting to an attempt to deny Israel its ability to meet its obligations to defend its citizens, to the hostages and to over 110 000 internally displaced Israelis unable to return safely to their homes.
“In terms of the intent, which is a very important issue to prove that Israel indeed has the intent to commit genocide against the people of Gaza, the argument by Israel was that it was clearly not government policy”.
Becker argued that if anyone has suffered genocidal violence, it has been Israel.
Becker also showed images of the hostages taken by Hamas, who he says South Africa has treated “as an afterthought.”
“Hamas militants ‘tortured children in front of parents, parents in front of children, burned people… systematically raped and mutilated’,” he said.
He stressed that Israel’s response was in self-defence and not aimed at the Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip.
“Israel is in a war of defense against Hamas, not against the Palestinian people.
“In these circumstances, there can hardly be a charge more false and more malevolent than the allegation against Israel of genocide.”
Both Israel and its ally, the United States, have dismissed the case as groundless and vowed to come up with a robust defence.
This is a developing story
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