South Africa Presented Case Showing Israel is Committing Genocide in Gaza

On December 29, 2023, South Africa took the bold step of doing what few other nations had even considered. It filed charges in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nations’ highest and most powerful judicial body, against Israel on charges of mass genocide carried out against the Palestinian people in Gaza since October 7.  A steady stream of complaints had been filed with the corrupt International Criminal Court (ICC), but have been mostly ignored by Israel's agent at ICC, Karim Khan.

The ICJ is housed at The Hague in the Netherlands and it has been far more responsive than the ICC, so far. The ICJ handles countries while the ICC is supposed to be for individuals who have committed genocide or other crimes against humanity.

The case is perhaps the most-followed criminal judicial hearing in history.

In terms of the number of people around the world actively following the trial, it rivals even the notorious Major War Criminals Trials held in Nuremberg, Germany, following the end of World War II. That series of 13 trials, which began in 1945 and concluded in 1949, were brought against what were then considered the most vicious and sadistic war criminals in modern history. Among other crimes, they were charged for their brutal mass genocide of Jewish people while Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich was in power. The Nazis are now looking a bit less evil in comparison to the Israelis and their disgustingly cruel and inhumane actions. 

Hitler justified the killing of the Jews based on religious texts he grew up with at the turn of the 19^th century, which called the Jews part of the “schwarze”, the darker-skinned people which those religious texts said were aligned with the darker and demonic angels in the heavens. In a manner of speaking, it was for Hitler about self-defense, ridding the world of those of a lower order than the white Aryan race. There was also the reality of Judaism and its belief that all non-Jews are the spawn of Satan, less than human and to be abused. Hitler was supported in his beliefs by American industrialist Henry Ford's series of newspaper articles and book entitled "The International Jew" that detailed the real and imagined conspiracies of Jews and their negative impact on humanity. 

It is estimated by some that the Nazis murdered over 6 million Jews total, with around 1.5 million of them children. Most of the killings were in Germany, Poland, other Eastern European countries, and the Soviet Union.

That massacre is today memorialized in language as the Holocaust. It also became the basis for The Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, a treaty which formally defines genocide, identifies it as a crime, and binds the signers to the agreement to enforce its provisions. It was adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 9, 1948, and entered into force on January 12, 1951.

It defines genocide in Article I of the treaty as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

In Article II of the treaty, it says that the “following acts shall be punishable: (a) Genocide; (b) Conspiracy to commit genocide; (c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide; (d) Attempt to commit genocide; and (e) Complicity in genocide.”

The U.S. and Israel are both signatories to the treaty. Both are obviously guilty of one or more of the above. 

With lawyer Adila Hassim of South Africa taking the lead on the case yesterday, she told the ICJ Israel had committed “grave violence and genocidal acts” on a massive scale against the Palestinian people in Gaza since October 7, 2023.

“Genocides are never declared in advance, but this court has the benefit of the past 13 weeks of evidence that shows incontrovertibly, a pattern of conduct and related intention that justifies a plausible claim of genocidal acts,” Hassim said in her initial address to the court.

Hassim delineated the facts of the case in rapid-fire succession.

She noted that Israeli Defense Forces deployed an average of over 6,000 bombs a week since the mass-murdering began. She also showed evidence that the IDF had dropped 900 kg (2000 pound) bombs, which she referred to as “some of the biggest and most destructive bombs available”, over 200 times since this phase of the war began, and nearly always in places Israel had told the Palestinian citizens they would be safe.

“Israel has killed an unparalleled and unprecedented number of civilians,” she continued. “With the full knowledge of how many civilian lives each bomb will take. More than 1,800 Palestinian families in Gaza have lost multiple family members and hundreds of multi-generational families have been wiped out with no remaining survivors.”

“This killing is nothing short of destruction of Palestinian life,” she said.

Hassim also made note that for the survivors, who have been witness to this phase of the bloody slaughter of now an estimated 23,570 of their people for a full quarter of a year now, the experience of watching the deaths while also suffering from lack of food, water, shelter, medical care, and fuel for most of that time, plus forced displacement of them, all of which are also in violation of the international rules of warfare, has been psychologically devastating. The physical injuries and mental suffering the survivors had inflicted upon them will last a lifetime and, the lawyer explained, is further evidence of genocide.

Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, another member of the South African legal team, next addressed the key issue of genocidal intent by Israel, something which must be proved to make the case stick against Israel.

“Israel’s political leaders, military commanders and persons holding official positions have systematically and in explicit terms declared their genocidal intent,” he explained. “These statements are then repeated by soldiers on the ground in Gaza as they engage in the destruction of Palestinians and the physical infrastructure of Gaza.”

If that were not enough, consider, Ngcubkaitobi continued, what Prime Minister Netanyahu said publicly on October 28, 2023, in a rallying cry to his country’s military forces as they prepared to enter Gaza for the first time since the conflict began this time.

“Remember what Amalek has done to you,” Netanyahu said.

Rather than being a reference to anything Hamas might have done on October 7, Ngcubkaitobi said Netanyahu was instead reminding the troops of “the Biblical command by God to Saul for the retaliatory destruction of an entire group of people.”

“The evidence of genocidal intent is not only chilling, it is also overwhelming and incontrovertible,” he continued.

Besides this, the attorney noted, there has been ongoing “repetition and reiteration and repetition of genocidal speech throughout every sphere of state in Israel”.

It is something which is documented in detail in the 80-page South African legal brief provided to the ICJ in filing its case against Israel.

It is also an everyday part of the talking points coming from the mouths of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

As just one of many examples, on October 9, two days after the Hamas raid, Minister Gallant made his intentions clear that he would be proceeding with a vicious assault on all within Gaza.

“We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza,” he told the press. “There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything will be closed.”

“We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly,” the defense minister continued.

That siege is itself evidence of genocide, but equally clear as evidence are the comments by Gallant here – and echoed by his colleagues and all the way down the military ranks of the IDF – that the Palestinians are lower forms of life than the Israeli people, whose lives must be snuffed out. 

Jewish belief that Palestinians (and other non-Jews) are less than human is an integral part of Judaism and comes primarily from their Talmud. 

The hearings concluded at the end of the day on January 11 with plans for South Africa to continue making its case on January 12.

The ringleader behind Israel’s actions, Benjamin Netanyahu, reacted with fierce anger to what had been said within hours after day 1 of the International Court of Justice trial was finished.

“We are fighting terrorists, we are fighting lies,” he said. “Today we saw an upside-down world. Israel is accused of genocide while it is fighting against genocide.”

While that is clearly intended as a show of defiance against the South African case, many will remember far more vividly how the ICJ justices opened the court hearing in summarizing the key points of the case, even before any South African attorney had even spoken.

“If you fail to call this a genocide, it is on you,” the justice told the audience, in a quote from the South African brief. “It is a sin and a darkness you willingly embrace.”

Criminally insane Israel will be presenting its defense before the ICJ on January 12, 2024. Trillions will be covering it and all proceedings in this case.