Israel defends itself against genocide allegations in Gaza
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Accused of committing genocide against Palestinians, Israel insisted at the United Nations’ highest court Friday that its war in Gaza was a legitimate defense of its people and that it was Hamas militants who were guilty of genocide.
Israel described the allegations leveled by South Africa in the International Court of Justice as hypocritical and said one of the biggest cases ever to come before an international court reflected a world turned upside down. Israeli leaders defend their air and ground offensive in Gaza as a legitimate response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, when militants stormed through Israeli communities, killing some 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostage.
Israeli legal advisor Tal Becker told a packed auditorium at the ornate Palace of Peace in The Hague the country is fighting a “war it did not start and did not want.”
On Friday afternoon, Germany said it wants to intervene in the proceedings on Israel’s behalf, saying there was “no basis whatsoever” for an accusation of genocide against Israel.
Under the court’s rules, if Germany files a declaration of intervention in the case, it will be able to make legal arguments on behalf of Israel.
More than 23,000 people in Gaza have been killed during Israel’s military campaign, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory. Nearly 85% of Gaza’s people have been driven their homes and much of northern Gaza has been reduced to rubble. South Africa says that amounts to genocide and is part of decades of Israeli oppression of Palestinians.
South African lawyers asked the court Thursday to order an immediate halt to Israeli military operations in the besieged coastal territory. A decision on that request will probably take weeks, and the full case is likely to last years.
The world court, which rules on disputes between nations, has never judged a country to be responsible for genocide. The closest it came was in 2007, when it ruled that Serbia “violated the obligation to prevent genocide” in the July 1995 massacre by Bosnian Serb forces of more than 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica.