Israel has categorically rejected the allegations being brought this week in the International Court of Justice by South Africa.
The International Court of Justice, the United Nations’ highest judicial body, will begin hearings this week in a case brought by South Africa that accuses Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.
The hearings, the first step in a lengthy process should the case go forward, will be the first time that Israel has chosen to defend itself, in person, in such a setting, attesting to the gravity of the indictment and the high stakes for its international reputation and standing.
Genocide, the term first employed by a Polish lawyer of Jewish descent in 1944 to describe the Nazis’ systematic murder of about six million Jews and others based on their ethnicity, is among the most serious crimes of which a country can be accused.
In its submission to the court, South Africa cited that lawyer, Raphael Lemkin, expounding on the definition of genocide. South Africa, whose post-apartheid government has long supported the Palestinian cause, accused Israel of actions in Gaza that are “genocidal in character.” It says Israel has killed Palestinian civilians, inflicted serious bodily and mental harm, and created for the residents of Gaza “conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction.”
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