ISRAEL REJECTS GENOCIDE ACCUSATIONS AT WORLD COURT – Israel Called on judges to dismiss South Africa’s request to halt its offensive
Israel rejected as false and “grossly distorted” accusations brought by South Africa at the U.N.’s top court that its military operation in Gaza is a state-led genocide campaign against the Palestinian population.
It called on judges to dismiss South Africa’s request to halt its offensive, saying it would leave it defenceless.
South Africa, which filed the lawsuit at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in December, asked judges to impose emergency measures ordering Israel to immediately halt the offensive. The court is expected to rule on these measures later this month.
It said Israel’s aerial and ground offensive – which has laid waste to much of the narrow coastal enclave and killed more than 23,000 people according to Gaza health authorities – aimed to bring about “the destruction of the population” of Gaza.
South Africa’s interpretation of events was “grossly distorted”, Israel’s foreign ministry’s legal adviser Tal Becker told the court.
Post-apartheid South Africa has long advocated the Palestinian cause, a relationship forged when the African National Congress’ struggle against white-minority rule was supported by Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organisation.
Mandla Mandela, a grandson of the late South Africa president Nelson Mandela, said at a rally in support of the Palestinians in Cape Town that “My grandfather always regarded the Palestinian struggle as the greatest moral issue of our time,”