Israel rejects South Africa’s accusations of genocide
Israel on Friday rejected what it called “severely distorted” accusations of genocide brought against it by South Africa, telling the United Nations International Court of Justice that the case was an attempt to “pervert the meaning.” of the term.
During the second and final day of hearings at the ICJ, Israel claimed that its war in Gaza was being fought in self-defense, that it was targeting Hamas rather than the Palestinians, and that its leadership had failed to demonstrate genocidal intent.
South Africa said on Thursday that Israel’s leadership was “determined to destroy the Palestinians as a group in Gaza”, and that its air and ground attacks on the enclave were intended to “bring about the destruction of its population Palestinian.”
Israel said the affair was “a concerted and cynical effort to pervert the meaning of the term ‘genocide’ itself.” He asked the court, which sits in The Hague, Netherlands, to dismiss the case as unfounded and refuse South Africa’s request to order an end to the war.
In a statement released after the second day of hearings at the ICJ, a German government spokesperson said Germany “expressly rejects” accusations that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
Spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said Germany recognizes the divergent opinions within the international community over Israel’s military operation in Gaza, but said “the German government decisively and explicitly rejects the accusation of genocide brought against Israel before the International Court of Justice.”
The ICJ was established in 1945 following World War II and the Holocaust. It deals with cases brought by states accusing other states of violating their obligations under United Nations treaties. South Africa and Israel are both signatories to the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, meaning they have an obligation not to commit genocide and to prevent and punish it .
In its opening remarks, Israel said it was “fully aware” of why the Genocide Convention was adopted. “Etched in our collective memory is the systematic murder of 6 million Jews, as part of a premeditated and heinous program aimed at their total annihilation,” said Tal Becker, a lawyer representing Israel.
But Israel claimed the convention was adopted only to “address a malicious crime of the most exceptional circumstances” and was not “designed to address the brutal impact of intensive hostilities” on civilians during the war.
“We live in a time where words have no value,” Becker said. “But if there’s any place where words should still matter, where the truth should still matter, it’s certainly in a court of law.” He claimed that South Africa’s case was an “attempt to weaponize Israel.”
The International Committee of the Red Cross estimated that at least 15,000 people have fled Mariupol in recent days, where along the front fighting continues to rage between the Ukrainian army and Russian-backed separatists. Furthermore, France and Russia have proposed a two-page document, containing their vision of a settlement of the conflict, in anticipation of the international summit in Paris on March 3, declared Vladimir Putin. Moscow clarified that these proposals aimed to unblock the situation, by simply avoiding “political clichés”. According to Moscow, the document proposes a political agreement with an amnesty for separatists, the holding of local elections and the granting of extended autonomy to the Donbass region, as well as the restoration of economic relations between Ukraine and the separatist regions. Production management