Attacked on its soil on October 7, Israel is now before the courts. South Africa has in fact accused the Jewish state of violating the United Nations Convention on Genocide before the International Court of Justice, the highest court of the UN. “No armed attack on the territory of a State, however serious it may be (…) can justify a violation of the Convention,” defended the South African Minister of Justice, Ronald Lamola, before the fifteen magistrates of the ICJ convened urgently in The Hague.
But what exactly is Pretoria accusing Israel of? Why is South Africa getting involved diplomatically on this subject? Can this accusation have consequences for Israel? 20 minutes make the point.
What are South Africa’s accusations against Israel?
Since the Hamas attack on October 7, Israel has launched a response on the Gaza Strip, bombing the Palestinian territory and even striking Lebanese soil. The price of the desire to “annihilate” Hamas, for the Palestinians, would be more than 23,000 dead, mostly women and children. A breach of the commitments of the United Nations Convention on Genocide, signed in 1948 following the Holocaust, according to Pretoria.
The bombing campaign carried out by Israel aims at “the destruction of Palestinian lives” and pushes the Palestinians “to the brink of famine”, said Adila Hassim, lawyer for South Africa, on Wednesday. “The situation is such that experts now predict that more people in Gaza could die of hunger and disease” than by bombings, she further said before adding: “genocides are never declared at the national level. t moves forward, but this court has the benefit of the last 13 weeks of evidence that indisputably shows a pattern of behavior and intent that supports a plausible allegation of genocidal acts. »
Why is South Africa getting involved in this issue?
Formerly a symbol of Apartheid, South Africa remains particularly sensitive and vigilant on issues of discrimination and oppression of one population by another. Hero of the anti-apartheid struggle, Nelson Mandela had also affirmed that the freedom of South Africa would be “incomplete” without that of the Palestinians, and the party from which he came, the African National Congress, supports the long-standing Palestinian cause.
Accused by Israel of acting as the “legal arm” of Hamas, South Africa assured that it condemned “unequivocally” the attacks of October 7. But Pretoria also believes that the Israeli response aims to “bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnic group”. With this legal action against an ally of the United States, South Africa is playing big on the diplomatic level. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, the southern state has already become angry with some Westerners by maintaining joint military operations with Russia or by maintaining very important economic links with China.
What could be the consequences for Israel?
“Fully aware” of the “particular weight of responsibility” of accusing Israel in this Convention created after the Shoah, Pretoria asks the Court to order Tel Aviv to “immediately suspend its military operations” in Gaza. An order that the ICJ had already given to Russia in March 2022 during the invasion of Ukraine, and which Vladimir Putin had superbly ignored. While the ICJ’s decisions are legally binding in theory, it has no power to enforce them.
A court ruling against Israel, however, would increase political pressure on the country, and could potentially serve as a pretext for sanctions. “The International Court of Justice can pronounce provisional measures before declaring itself competent”, specifies for France Info Yann Jurovics, lecturer in international law at Paris-Saclay University. Pretoria then hopes for measures on access to water and humanitarian aid for the Palestinians. Even if a judgment on the merits for genocide can take years, a provisional decision to this effect from the ICJ would have an “extremely strong symbolic significance and could lead a certain number of countries to line up behind South Africa”, indicates for his part, international jurist Pascal Turlan at Huffington Post.
However, the complete resolution of the case before the ICJ can take years. At this stage, “the court will not determine whether a genocide is taking place in Gaza,” warns Cecily Rose. And the professor of international law at Leiden University in the Netherlands: “the court will only assess whether there is a risk of irreparable harm to the rights guaranteed by the Genocide Convention, in particular the right of Palestinians in Gaza to be protected from acts that threaten their existence as a group. »