white house —
South Africa is taking the war in Gaza to a top global court, accusing Israel of genocide in a lengthy court filing that the International Court of Justice is preparing to hear next week.
Israel says the filing constitutes "blood libel," and the White House dimisses it as "meritless."
More than 22,000 Palestinians have perished since the start of Israel’s offensive on Gaza, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. U.S. officials have previously cast doubt on those figures, noting that the ministry is run by Hamas, the group that was elected to govern Gaza and whose armed wing launched the October 7 attack on Israel that killed more than 1,200 people.
Hamas, which is designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. and some of its allies, lists the killing of Jews and the elimination of the Jewish state as its main objectives.
South Africa’s 84-page submission, filed last week, says that Israel’s actions in its Gaza offensive "are genocidal in character, as they are committed with the requisite specific intent … to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as a part of the broader Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group."
Israel’s use of state organs and agents to do this, they say, is a violation of its obligations under the 1948 Genocide Convention.
Alarms over possible war crimes
International organizations, including United Nations agencies, have raised alarms over possible war crimes, with the U.N.’s human rights agency calling in November for "prompt, transparent and independent investigations into allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity, perpetrated in Israel and in the Occupied Palestinian Territory on 7 October 2023 and thereafter."
Israel’s government has slammed the move as a "decision to play advocate for the devil" and accused South Africa of "blood libel." The accusation that Jewish people use the blood of Christians in religious rituals has been touted for centuries — notably by the genocidal Nazi regime, which oversaw the extermination of some 6 million Jews — to justify targeting Jews.
"History will judge South Africa for its criminal complicity with the bloodiest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, and it will judge it without mercy," said Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy.
initInfographics(
{
groups:[],
params:[{“Name”:”embed_html”,”Value”:”u0026lt;blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”u0026gt;u0026lt;p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”u0026gt;Israel condemns South Africa’s decision to play advocate for the devil. History will judge South Africa for its criminal complicity with the bloodiest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, and it will judge it without mercy. u0026lt;a href=”https://t.co/EzCc3ETT2L”u0026gt;pic.twitter.com/EzCc3ETT2Lu0026lt;/au0026gt;u0026lt;/pu0026gt;— Eylon Levy (@EylonALevy) u0026lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/EylonALevy/status/1742211234798170141?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”u0026gt;January 2, 2024u0026lt;/au0026gt;u0026lt;/blockquoteu0026gt;||data-pangea-embed::”true””,”DefaultValue”:””,”HtmlEncode”:false,”Type”:”HTML”}],
isMobile:true
});
(function (d) {
var userInput = Infographics.Param[“embed_html”],
thisSnippet = (d.getElementsByClassName ? d.getElementsByClassName(“twitterSnippet”) : d.querySelectorAll(“.twitterSnippet”))[0],
render = function () {
var madeDiv, bquote, sId = “twitterAPIForSnippet”;
try {
madeDiv = document.createElement(“div”);
madeDiv.innerHTML = userInput;
} catch (e) {
thisSnippet.innerHTML = “Twitter Embed Code is invalid or incomplete.”;
return;
}
bquote = madeDiv.childNodes[0];
if (bquote.tagName.toLowerCase() === “blockquote” && bquote.className.indexOf(“twitter”) !== -1) { //remove everything except paragraphs and links
var all = bquote.getElementsByTagName(“*”);
for (var i = all.length – 1; i >= 0; i–) {
var elm = all[i];
var tag = elm.tagName.toLowerCase();
if (tag !== “a” && tag !== “p”)
all[i].parentNode.removeChild(all[i]);
}
} else {
thisSnippet.innerHTML = “Twitter Embed Code does not contain proper Twitter blockquote.”;
return;
}
if (!d.getElementById(sId)) { //async request Twitter API
var js, firstJs = d.getElementsByTagName(“script”)[0];
js = d.createElement(“script”);
js.id = sId;
js.src = “//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js”;
firstJs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, firstJs);
}
thisSnippet.parentNode.style.width = “100%”;
thisSnippet.appendChild(bquote);
if (window.twttr && window.twttr.widgets) {
window.twttr.widgets.load();
window.twttr.events.bind(“rendered”, function (e) {
//fix twitter bug rendering multiple embeds per tweet. Can be deleted after Twitter fix the issue
if (e.target) {
var par = e.target.parentElement;
if (par && par.className === “twitterSnippetProcessed” &&
e.target.previousSibling && e.target.previousSibling.nodeName.toLowerCase() === “iframe”) {
//this is duplicate embed, delete it
par.removeChild(e.target);
}
}
});
}
};
thisSnippet.className = “twitterSnippetProcessed”;
thisSnippet.style = “display:flex;justify-content:center;”;
if (d.readyState === “uninitialized” || d.readyState === “loading”)
window.addEventListener(“load”, render);
else //liveblog, ajax
render();
})(document);
