South Africa presented new evidence to the United Nations’ (UN) top court on Monday to back up accusations that Israel is committing genocide in the besieged Palestinian enclave of Gaza.
Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa’s president, said the evidence showed Israel “violated the genocide convention by promoting the destruction of Palestinians living in Gaza, physically killing them with various destructive weapons and denying them access to humanitarian aid.”
He added that evidence shows that Israel’s actions are aimed at the physical destruction of Palestinians, as well as “ignoring and defying” several interim measures previously ordered by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Referring to evidence presented in over 750 pages of text, Ramaphosa said that Israel “uses starvation as a weapon of war and wants to achieve Israel’s goals such as depopulation of Gaza through mass killing and forced displacement of Palestinians.”
Ramaphoza said the presentation of evidence comes at a time when Israel is intensifying its killing of civilians in Gaza, adding that “Israel now appears intent on following a similar path of destruction in Lebanon.”
Israel should submit a response to the new evidence by July 28thnext year.
“The evidence will show that at the root of Israel’s genocidal acts lies a specific intent to commit genocide,” Ramaphosa said, calling on the global community to stop the disaster in Gaza.
South Africa filed a genocide claim against Israel at the Hague-based tribunal in late 2023, alleging that Israel, which has been bombing the Gaza Strip since last October, has failed to fulfill its obligations under the 1948 Genocide Convention.
Several countries, including Turkey, Nicaragua, Palestine, Spain, Mexico, Libya and Colombia, have joined the case, which began with public hearings in January.
In May, the tribunal ordered Israel to halt its offensive on the town of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. It was the third time the 15-member judicial panel issued preliminary orders aimed at curbing the death toll and easing humanitarian suffering in the blockaded Gaza Strip, where nearly 43,000 Palestinians have been killed.
