Hundreds of leading lawyers and academics have warned the
UK government to take all measures within its power to stop genocide against
Palestinians in Gaza. The open letter follows a landmark legal case brought by
South Africa against Israel to the UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. The submission accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in
Gaza , and claimed that Israel has broken its commitment to the UN Genocide Convention. The judges at the ICJ ordered Israel to do all it can to prevent genocide, but a ruling on whether genocide has been committed or not could take years. 153 countries, including the UK, are signed up to the Genocide Convention. This is what the Convention could mean for the future of the conflict in Gaza. South Africa is urging the ICJ to act to ‘protect against further severe and irreparable harm to the rights of the Palestinian people under the genocide convention, which continues to be violated with impunity’. South Africa brought the case to the ICJ on 29 December, 2023 in a bid to stop Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. The case is against the State of Israel, rather than against any individuals or government, and it is not a criminal trial. The initial hearing took place on 11 and 12 January 2024. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Israel has defended its actions in Gaza, saying strikes and a ground incursion into the Strip is a direct response to Hamas’s deadly attack on 7 October. 240 people were taken hostage by Hamas in the 7 October attacks on southern
Israeli kibbutzim and the Supernova
music festival. 130 hostages remain in captivity or are unaccounted for. At least 32,623 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli offensive, according to UN figures. The majority of those killed have been civilians. At least 685 healthcare workers have been killed in the conflict, according to the World Health Organisation. Investigations by the Committee to Protect Journalists found that 95 journalists have been killed in Gaza since the 7 October attacks. South Africa has submitted an 84-page legal document outlining its case. Follow us to receive the latest news updates from Metro (Picture: Getty Images) Metro’s on Whatsapp! Join our community for
BREAKING news and juicy stories. The document alleges that ‘Israel has engaged in, is engaging in and risks further engaging in genocidal acts against the Palestinian people in Gaza’. It adds: ‘Those acts include killing them, causing them serious mental and bodily harm and deliberately inflicting on them conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction as a group.’ South Africa has historic links to Palestine. When the African National
Congress (ANC) came to power following the end of apartheid in 1994, it established strong diplomatic relations with Palestine. Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first post-apartheid president, said in 1997 that ‘we know all too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians’. The word apartheid comes from the Afrikaans word ‘apartness’. Apartheid was a racial segregation system introduced in South Africa in 1948. Under apartheid laws, different racial groups were forced to live in separate areas. Many black people were forced out of their homes and were forbidden from owning property. Transport, education and health systems were also segregated. There was strong opposition to apartheid. In 1960, 69 people were killed at an anti-apartheid demonstration in Sharpeville. Apartheid came to an end in South Africa in 1994, when the African National Congress (ANC) came to power. The current South African government condemned Hamas’s attack on 7 October, while also expressing support for Palestinians in Gaza. South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor delivered a statement on the conflict, saying: ‘We, who enjoy the freedom from Apartheid, can never, ever be the ones who agree to an apartheid form of oppression. This cannot be tolerated. This brutality should not be accepted.’ Genocide is defined as the act of killing a large number of people with the intent to destroy a particular national, ethnical, racial or religious group. According to the
United Nations definition, genocide may also involve causing serious bodily or mental harm to the group, deliberately inflicting conditions, such as depriving access to water, that could bring about the group’s destruction, preventing births within the group, and forcibly transferring children to another group. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video The Genocide Convention was adopted by the UN in 1948 following the Second World War. Both Israel and South Africa are signatories, which commits both states to prevent genocide. The convention is ratified by 153 countries, including the UK. Each state signed up to the convention is obliged to take action to prevent and punish genocide. Responding to the ICJ court case, Israeli president
Benjamin Netanyahu said: ‘No, South Africa, it is not we who have come to perpetrate genocide, it is Hamas.’ The UN’s special rapporteur on
Human Rights in the occupied territories Francesca Albanese said that there were ‘reasonable grounds’ to believe Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Albanese said that Israel has committed three acts of genocide: causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions intended to bring about the destruction of a group, and imposing measures to prevent births. The Israeli embassy to the UN in Geneva called the comments ‘an obscene inversion of reality’. On 26 January 2024, the Court issued ‘emergency measures’ and ordered Israel to ‘take all measures within its power’ to prevent genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. ‘At least some of the acts and omissions alleged by South Africa to have been committed by Israel in Gaza appear to be capable of falling within the provisions of the (Genocide) Convention,’ one of the judges said. At least 15 out of the 17 judges voted in favour of imposing the provisional measures. The court also ordered Israel to take ‘immediate and effective measures’ to ensure that humanitarian aid could reach Gaza. However, while these orders are legally binding, they cannot be enforced by the court. The judges did not order a ceasefire, which South Africa had called for. The court has not yet taken a decision on whether genocide has been committed or not. A final verdict could take years. South Africa has not stopped its pursuit of legal action against Israel.
British dad stuck in one of the world's most notorious and lawless prisons Physically healthy 28-year-old woman will be euthanised next month At least 94 dead after overcrowded makeshift ferry sinks Woman's half-naked body found dumped at the side of the road On 12 February 2024, South Africa launched an ‘urgent request’ to the court over Israel’s
MILITARY operations in the city of Rafah in Gaza. In a statement, South Africa said that the offensive against Rafah ‘would be in serious and irreparable breach of both the Genocide Convention and of the Court’s Order of January 26.’ Other countries have also announced their own legal interventions and proceedings. In March, Ireland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence Micheál Martin said that
Ireland will be intervening in the ICJ case filed by South Africa. ‘What we are currently seeing in Gaza, constitutes a blatant violation of international humanitarian law on a massive scale,’ he said. Ireland will file a declaration once South Africa has submitted a written statement of its arguments. The intervention would put forward Ireland’s interpretation of the Genocide Convention. In addition to its case against Israel, South Africa is reportedly preparing a lawsuit against the US and the UK. Both countries supply weapons to Israel, and South Africa argues that this makes them complicit. A South African attorney, Wikus van Rensburg, is working with a group of nearly 50 lawyers on the case. He said that the UK and US ‘must be held accountable for the conduct and what is happening within Gaza.’ He added that ‘this will be the first such lawsuit in the world.’ In March, Nicaragua filed a case against
Germany at the ICJ for funding Israel and suspending aid to UNRWA. Nicaragua has asked the ICJ to order emergency measures to force Germany to cease military aid to Israel. ‘Germany is facilitating the commission of genocide’ Nicaragua said in its filing. A hearing date has not yet been announced. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is in the Hague in the Netherlands. It is the UN’s top court. However, its sentencing is not enforceable. In 2022, the ICJ ordered
Russia to ‘immediately suspend’ its military operation in Ukraine. This order was ignored. It is the International Criminal Court that has the power to prosecute individuals for crimes such as genocide. However the ICJ’s opinions do carry weight with the UN and other international institutions. ‘Madam President, Members of the Court, in conclusion I share with you two photographs. The first is of a white board at a hospital — in Northern Gaza — one of the many Palestinian hospitals targeted, besieged, bombed by Israel over the course of the past three brutal months. The white board is wiped clean of no longer possible surgical cases, leaving only a hand-written message by a Médecins Sans Frontières doctor which reads: ‘We did what we could. Remember us.’ The second is of the same whiteboard, after an Israeli strike on the hospital on 21 November 2023 that killed the author of the message, Dr Mahmoud Abu Nujaila, along with two of his colleagues. Just over a month later, in a powerful
Christmas Day sermon, delivered from a church in Bethlehem — on the same day Israel had killed 250 Palestinians, including at least 86 people, many from the same family, massacred in a single strike on Maghazi Refugee Camp — Palestinian Pastor Munther Isaac addressed his congregation and the world. He said: ‘Gaza as we know it no longer exists. This is an annihilation. This is a genocide. We will rise. We will stand up again from the midst of destruction, as we have always done as Palestinians, although this is by far maybe the biggest blow we have received.’ But he said: ‘No apologies will be accepted after the genocide . . . What has been done has been done. I want you to look at the mirror and ask, ‘where was I when Gaza was going through a genocide’.’ South Africa is here before this Court, in the Peace Palace. It has done what it could. It is doing what it can, by initiating these proceedings, by seeking interim measures against itself as well as against Israel. South Africa now respectfully and humbly calls on this honourable Court to do what is in its power to do, to indicate the provisional measures that are so urgently required to prevent further irreparable harm to the Palestinian people in Gaza, whose hopes — including for their very survival — are now vested in the Court.’ London-based
Irish barrister, Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh’, at the ICJ in The Hague on 11 January, 2023 John Dugard, a South African professor of international law, is a member of the South African prosecution team. He previously served as an ICJ ad hoc judge in 2008. In 2007, Dugard, who lived through apartheid in South Africa, likened Israel’s laws and practices to ‘aspects of apartheid’. Working alongside Dugard on South Africa’s team is Adila Hassim, a lawyer with a legal career that spans more than two decades. She is the co-found of Section27, a human rights organisation fighting for access to healthcare and education in South Africa. Hassim also co-founded Corruption Watch, which monitors corruption in South Africa. Speaking at the court in January, Hassim described the submission as ‘a case that underscores the very essence of our shared humanity’. She added: ‘As the UN Secretary General explained five weeks ago, the level of Israel’s killing is so excessive that nowhere is safe in Gaza.’ Tembeka Ngcukaitobi and Professor Max Du Plessis also served on South Africa’s legal team. Malcolm Shaw is a British lawyer and academic who represented Israel in the ICJ case. Shaw has previously represented
Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates and Cameroon in the international court. He specialises in territorial law and human rights. Aharon Barak is Israel’s former
Supreme Court president. He was named as Israel’s appointee to the 15-judge panel during the court hearing. South Africa also has a representative on the panel. The 87-year-old is a
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