South Africa returned to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Netherlands, this week in an effort to stop Israel’s ongoing military operation in the city of Rafah against the last Hamas battalions in the Gaza Strip.
The struggling African nation — which faces elections later this month — took Israel to the ICJ earlier this year, urging the court to declare that Israel was guilty of “genocide” in Gaza, even though Israel has taken pains to avoid civilian casualties, and allows hundreds of trucks laden with humanitarian aid to enter the territory every day. The ICJ ruled that Israel had to report on its efforts to comply with international humanitarian law, but did not order a ceasefire.
Some misinterpreted the ICJ’s ruling as saying that the case for genocide was “plausible,” when in fact the court had simply said that South Africa had made a “plausible” case that Palestinians had certain fundamental rights at stake.
Egypt, and Turkey, later sought to join South Africa’s case, and Nicaragua took Germany to the ICJ in a failed attempt to bar it from selling arms to Israel. This week’s case is a separate effort by South Africa, focused specifically on Rafah.
As it did in January, when it first presented its genocide case, South Africa argued on Thursday that Israel had no right to defend itself against the Hamas terrorists who attacked it on October 7. It also argued that Israel was trying to “destroy Palestinian life and to wipe them off the face of the earth.” Israel responded Friday, attacking “distortions” in the South African case and noting that the South African government had ties to Hamas, the Times of Israel reports.
The court is expected to issue a ruling next week. Thus far, hundreds of thousands of civilians have evacuated Rafah, as Israel has taken control of the border crossing with Egypt and confronted Hamas in small-scale, targeted attacks.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
