ICJ updates: South Africa’s genocide case against Israel over Gaza war

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We will be closing this live page soon. Here’s a recap of the day’s main developments:

• South Africa presented their case against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
• The country’s legal team accused Israel of committing genocide against the people of Gaza.
• The South African representatives included Ronald Lamola, Adila Hassim, Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, John Dugard, Max du Plessis,  Blinne Ni Ghralaigh, Vaughan Lowe and Vusimuzi Madonsela.
• Hundreds of pro-Palestinian supporters gathered outside the court.
• Israel’s Foreign Ministry released a strongly worded statement after the hearing in which it accused South Africa of “functioning as the legal arm” of Hamas.

Hamas officials have expressed hope the court will rule favourably in the case launched by South Africa.

“We welcome the convening of the [case] … on the accusation of ethnic cleansing and genocide,” Basem Naim said. “We are looking forward to seeing a decision by the court that would achieve justice for the [Palestinian] victims, end the aggression on Gaza, and hold the war criminals accountable.”

Separately, Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri said: “The Palestinian people are following the court session in The Hague with great concern and interest. We urge the court to reject all pressure and take a decision to criminalise the Israeli occupation and stop the aggression on Gaza.”

Jeremy Corbyn, a British member of parliament and a former leader of the main opposition Labour Party, has told Al Jazeera in The Hague that South Africa’s case against Israel is “very strong”.

“It was brilliantly prepared and put forward, analytical, non-sensational and minimalist in terms of images that were shown,” he said.

Corbyn also said that he hopes the interim injunction that was requested by the South African lawyers today will come soon “if international law is to mean anything”.

Asked if anything would change even if South Africa’s request is successful, he replied, “Everything is incremental. Every time you step out on the street and wave a Palestinian flag and say, ‘Stop the killing of Palestinian people’, any time someone speaks up in a parliament that’s an incremental difference.”

If there’s one word that I’ve been hearing here all morning, speaking to everyone, it’s the word “historic”.

Never before has a state laid out such a detailed, extensive, gruesome genocide case here at the ICJ. Layer by layer, step by step, South Africa has made this very compelling argument.

It’s a very strong case, according to international law experts.

What is very important that’s happening here now is that the state of South Africa is asking for an urgent injunction. The genocide could drag on for years, but the court has to decide first what has to be done now.

And that is what South Africa is asking: to stop the military campaign in Gaza immediately. So that’s something that the court is discussing.

Al Jazeera’s Fahmida Miller, reporting from Pretoria, says many people in South Africa are feeling “a lot of pride” due to the legal action taken by their country.

“What is happening in Gaza resonates very deeply with many South Africans because of their own history of apartheid, subjugation, oppression, institutionalised racism and the challenges South Africans have had to overcome,” she said.

Miller noted that South Africa has long supported Palestinian efforts for self-determination.

“Former President Nelson Mandela spoke about the importance of Palestinian freedom, saying that South Africans were not free as long as Pals weren’t free,” she added.

Lior Haiat, spokesperson of the Israeli Ministry for Foreign Affairs, also labelled today’s hearings as one of the “greatest shows of hypocrisy in history, compounded by a series of false and baseless claims”.

He then accused South Africa of seeking to allow Hamas to return to Israel in order to “commit war crimes”.

Sara Rashdan, an organiser at the pro-Palestine solidarity rally in The Hague, has told Al Jazeera the court case is ” one step towards justice for Palestinians”.

“We are hoping that this will lead to the end of the genocide and hopefully, in the near future, an end to the occupation,” the activist said.

Rashdan added that protesters also wanted to show their support to South Africa.

“We are hoping that the court rules that this is a genocide and then from this any state that does not act towards ending the genocide will then be complicit in the genocide itself.”

South Africa’s justice minister, speaking to journalists outside the ICJ court, has reiterated many of the remarks made by his country’s representatives at today’s hearing.

Ronald Lamola also referred to South Africa’s history and how it has evoked a sense of solidarity with Palestinians. Here are some of his points:

• This case presents the court with an opportunity to act in real-time to prevent genocide from continuing in Gaza by issuing an urgent injunction.
• South Africa is a multifaceted, multicultural and multiracial country that embraces the concept of ubuntu as a way of defining who we are and relating to others. Ubuntu means I am because you are.
• It has played a major role in the forging of South African national consciousness and in the process of its democratic transformation and nation-building.
• Our history is one of repression and violence, human rights abuses, apartheid is a crime against humanity, discrimination and distrust between people born on the same soil.
• This history joins us to stand in principle in solidarity with the people of Palestine, as our founding would have wanted us to do, Nelson Mandela.

The Palestinians I’ve been speaking to here in Ramallah are very interested in this case.

We were at a rally just a little over two hours ago in Nelson Mandela Square where we had brief remarks by Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh.

He thanked the South African government for proceeding with this case. He said that if 23,000 people being killed in Gaza is not considered genocide, he does not know what would be.

He also said just as the South African people had prevailed against apartheid, the Palestinian people will also ultimately prevail.

There are very deep ties between South Africa and the Palestinian people. In 1997, Nelson Mandela said, “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”

The South African lawyers have spoken the Gazans’ hearts and minds, carefully describing in detail what is happening here.

Their account is consistent with what we have been reporting since the start of this war. House-by-house attacks, people displaced from one evacuation centre to another, people being sent to safe areas and then being bombed, using starvation as a method of war.

People here are quite hopeful now, despite knowing the fact that once this case reaches the UN Security Council, the US is likely to veto it.

Everybody is surprised by the fact that a group of excellent lawyers brought their plight in detail to the attention of the international community. Something that has never happened before.

Vaughan Lowe, who is representing South Africa in the ICJ case, said that although Israel says it does whatever it can to minimise civilian casualties, its relentless bombing of Gaza’s residential areas and “safe zones” tell a different story.

We have just listened to three hours of very detailed descriptions of what South Africa says is a very compelling case of genocide that Israel is now committing in Gaza.

South Africa is asking the court to quickly decide on urgent provisional measures to ask Israel to stop whatever it is doing: Military action, mass displacement, depriving Gazans of food, shelter, water, and basic healthcare.

Historians, who have been following the ICJ for many years, say that this is the most detailed, most gruesome case so far.

While the ICJ hearing was taking place in The Hague, here is what happened in Gaza and the occupied West Bank:

• Israel’s air force says it killed 10 Hamas fighters near the Maghazi camp in central Gaza.
• Israeli bombing near Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital in Deir el-Balah, in central Gaza, killed at least eight people. Four medics with the Palestine Red Crescent were also killed.
• Israeli forces have arrested 28 more Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, bringing the total number of arrests since October 7 to 5,810, according to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society.
• Continuing attacks in central and southern Gaza put three more hospitals at risk of closing.

South Africa’s representatives have now concluded their arguments.

ICJ President Joan Donoghue announces that today’s hearing is adjourned and that the court will meet tomorrow to hear Israel’s oral arguments.

Stay with us as we bring you reactions and analyses to today’s hearing, as well from the demonstrations taking place in The Hague and elsewhere.

Vusimuzi Madonsela, a representative for South Africa, tells the court that South Africa has come to the ICJ “to prevent genocide and to do so in the discharge of the international obligation that rests on South Africa and all other states under the convention”.

“The consequences of not indicating clear and specific provisional measures and not taking steps to intervene while Israel disregards its international obligations before our eyes would, we fear, be very grave indeed:

• for the Palestinians in Gaza who remain at real risk of further genocidal acts
• for the integrity of the convention, for the rights of South Africa, and
• for the reputation of this court which is equipped with and must exercise its powers to afford an effective realisation of the rights under the convention.

Lowe addresses this question with the following points:

• This case concerns Israel’s actions in Gaza, which is the territory that, three weeks ago, the UN Security Council stressed is “an integral part of the territory occupied in 1967” by Israel.
• As the court will understand, Hamas is not a state and cannot be a party to the Genocide Convention and cannot be a party to these proceedings.
• There are other bodies and processes that can address the questions of steps to be taken with respect to past atrocities against other actors.
• As a matter of law under the convention, South Africa cannot request an order from this court against Hamas.

Another lawyer, Vaughan Lowe, begins his speech, as most of South Africa’s representatives have, by reminding the court that at this stage, it does not “have to determine whether or not Israel has, or has not, acted contrary to its obligations under the Genocide Convention”.

He says this can only be done “at the merits stage”.

He then addresses the ICJ’s jurisprudence which points to five requirements for provisional measures. Listing them one by one he lays out how South Africa’s case has met these requirements.