The Republic of South Africa today accused Israel of genocidal acts against the Palestinians before the International Court of Justice in The Hague and appealed to the court to immediately order the suspension of the Israeli military operation in Gaza.
In the Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, 23.469 Palestinians were killed and 59.604 were injured, the Gaza Ministry of Health announced today, Reuters reports.
The Israeli army denied today that it was responsible for an attack on an ambulance in the Gaza Strip that killed six people, including rescuers from the Palestinian Red Crescent.
"There were no attacks in the said sector," the Israeli army said.
The attack took place in Deir el-Balah, in the central part of the Gaza Strip.
All the dead were in the ambulance.
The Red Crescent announced on the X network that yesterday's attack was carried out by the Israeli army.
According to the Hamas health ministry, more than 120 ambulances were destroyed and 326 health workers were killed since the beginning of the war.
Today, the hearing begins before the International Court of Justice in The Hague regarding allegations by the Republic of South Africa that Israel's war against Hamas constitutes genocide against the Palestinians, which Israel vehemently denies.
In a case before the UN's top court, which is likely to take years to resolve, South Africa is asking the court to order an immediate halt to Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip, lift aid restrictions and ban Israeli directives on evacuations.
As the AP reports, pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian protesters began this morning, despite the cold, to gather in front of the court in The Hague while Dutch police watched.
Two days of preliminary hearings will begin today with lawyers from South Africa explaining why the country has accused Israel of "acts and omissions of a genocidal character" in the Gaza war and why it is asking the court to issue a temporary order to immediately halt Israeli military actions.
Tomorrow, the Israeli legal team will present its arguments.
Legal teams from both sides will have three hours each to present their arguments, and a verdict could be announced in a matter of weeks.
Although it considers the UN and international tribunals unfair and biased, Israel has sent a strong legal team to defend its military operation launched after the October 7 attack by Hamas.
"I think they came because they want to be freed and think they can successfully defend themselves against genocide charges," said Juliet McIntyre, an international law expert at the University of South Australia.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a video statement last night defending his country's actions.
"Israel has no intention of permanently occupying Gaza or displacing the civilian population... Israel is fighting Hamas terrorists, not the Palestinian population, and we are doing so in full compliance with international law," he said, adding that the Israeli military "does everything is in its power to minimize civilian casualties, while Hamas does everything to increase them by using Palestinian civilians as human shields".
In a statement released after the case was filed last year, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Palestinian Authority called on the court to "immediately take measures to protect the Palestinian people and call on Israel, the occupying power, to stop the attack on the Palestinian people in order to provide an objective legal solution."
The International Court of Justice, which decides on disputes between states, has never judged a country to be responsible for genocide. The closest it came in 2007 was when it ruled that Serbia "breached its obligation to prevent genocide" in the massacre of more than 8.000 Muslim men and boys in the Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica in July 1995 by Bosnian Serb forces.
South Africa will have a "hard time crossing the threshold" of proving genocide, McIntyre said.
"It's not just about killing a huge number of people. There must be an intention to destroy a group of people (classified by race or religion, for example) in whole or in part, in a specific place," she added in an email sent to the AP agency.
In a detailed 84-page document launching the case, South Africa claims Israel has shown that intention.
Since the October 7 Hamas attack that killed at least 1.200 people, Israeli attacks have killed more than 23.000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, of which 70 percent are women and children, the agency reports.
The UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) estimated that 1,9 million people were displaced by the war in Gaza, which is almost 85 percent of the population, while tens of thousands of buildings were destroyed.
"The acts and omissions of Israel complained of by the Republic of South Africa are of a genocidal character because they are intended to lead to the destruction of a significant part of the Palestinian population," the South African Republic stated in a written submission to the court.
Israel reacted strongly to the report, calling it "baseless" and "defamatory".
The Israelis still claim that they are acting in self-defense, in protecting the Israeli people by destroying the militant organization Hamas.
The United States also dismissed the case as "unargued".
South Africa's ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), has a long history of comparing Israel's attitude toward the Palestinians to the attitude of the white minority toward black South Africans during apartheid, AP reminds.
The Genocide Convention, drawn up in 1948 after World War II and the aftermath of the Holocaust, describes genocide as "acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group."
(BETA)
Houthi leader Mohammed Ali al-Houthi said that the resolution of the United Nations Security Council, which requires Yemeni rebels to stop attacks on merchant ships in the Red Sea, is a "political game" and that the US is the one violating international law.
Al Houthi, in a post on the X network, said that what the Yemeni militants are doing falls within the scope of "legitimate defense" and that any action they face will be met with an appropriate response, reports Reuters.
"We call on the Security Council to immediately release 2,3 million people from the Israeli-American siege of Gaza," the Houthi leader announced.
The Houthis, a pro-Iranian organization that seized control of much of Yemen during the civil war, had previously said they would attack ships linked to Israel or bound for Israeli ports in order to support Hamas Islamists in Gaza.
On Wednesday, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution demanding that Yemen's Houthis stop attacks on commercial and merchant ships in the Red Sea.
As stated in the resolution, the UN Security Council "condemns in the strongest terms the attacks by the Hutus", of which there were at least 20, on commercial ships, from November 19, 2023.
In addition, the UN Security Council "demands that the Houthis immediately stop all such attacks that disrupt global trade, harm the rights and freedoms of navigation, and threaten regional peace and security," AP reports.
11 countries voted for the resolution, no member of the Security Council was against, while Russia, China, Algeria and Mozambique abstained.
Before the vote, the UN Security Council rejected three Russian amendments.
The United Nations special representative on sexual violence in conflict will travel to Israel at the end of January to "gather information" regarding allegations that the Palestinian movement Hamas resorted to such violence during a major attack on October 7, a spokesman for the world body's secretary-general said.
Pramila Patten will "lead a mission that will go to Israel and the West Bank at the end of the month (...) to gather information about allegations of sexual violence committed in the context of the October 7 attack and its aftermath," spokesman Stefan Dižarik said, noting that it will not be an "investigation" in the true sense of the word.
Patten will be accompanied by forensic experts and specialists for conducting interviews of this type. She will meet with "survivors, witnesses and other victims of sexual violence", as well as "hostages and recently released prisoners".
"She will report on what she saw and heard as part of her mandate to combat the horrific and increasing use of sexual violence in conflict, and will be the UN's voice on what happened on October 7 and beyond," the spokesman added. .
The United Nations has been criticized for being too slow to respond to rape and sexual violence that Israel accuses Hamas of perpetrating during the October 7 attack on the south of the Jewish state.
The attack, the bloodiest against civilians on Israeli soil since the country's founding in 1948, left about 1.140 dead, mostly civilians, according to Israeli figures.
About 250 people were kidnapped, and then about 100 were released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners during the ceasefire in late November.
After the attack, Israel promised to destroy Hamas.
The Israeli offensive left more than 23.000 dead in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry of Hamas, which rules the territory.
It is completely surrounded by Israel and is mercilessly bombarded.
(BETA)
Conflict between Israel and Hamas - 96th day.
The Israeli Air Force bombarded the southern Gaza Strip this morning, and Hamas reported 62 deaths overnight across the Palestinian territory.
Eyewitnesses said Israeli planes had stepped up attacks on Khan Yunis, the city at the epicenter of fighting in recent weeks.
Clashes continue at the moment of the visit of the head of American diplomacy, Anthony Blinken, to the Middle East, in an effort to stop the spread of the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Blinken will meet in Cairo this morning with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, whose country played a key role in establishing a week-long ceasefire at the end of November.
Today, Israel will face accusations of "genocidal actions" before the International Court of Justice, for which Israeli President Isaac Herzog said "there is nothing more horrible and senseless".
At the meeting with Blinken, Herzog criticized South Africa for filing the lawsuit.
According to Hamas, 23.357 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli military operations since October 7.
The war began after Palestinian extremists attacked the south of Israel, in which about 1.200 people were killed, and 240 were kidnapped and taken to the Gaza Strip.
(BETA)
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