South Africa presents new claims against Israel before the ICJ

Pretoria announced on Tuesday that it has submitted a new appeal to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague to urgently investigate Israel’s announcement of an upcoming military attack on Rafah and challenge if necessary ‘new violations of rights.’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently ordered his army to prepare an attack on the city of Rafah, the last refuge of 1.4 million Palestinians, according to the United Nations, more than half of the total population of the area, many of whom have fled the war that has been going on for four months. International pressure has since increased for a ceasefire agreement between Israel and the militant group Hamas. Pretoria said it had submitted an urgent appeal to the ICJ on Monday.

South Africa has already taken the issue to the UN’s highest court, accusing Israel of ‘genocide’ in Gaza. The judges, who did not say anything at this time on the issue of whether Israel is committing genocide or not, nevertheless ordered it to stop such actions. According to the South African government, this would ‘constitute a serious and irreparable violation of the Genocide Convention.’ The ICJ, which is not required to deal with the case, has not confirmed at this stage that it has received the file. The Court’s decisions are binding and cannot be challenged by appeal, but it has no way of enforcing its decisions of more than 1,160 people, most of whom were civilians, were killed that day, according to an AFP count based on Israeli data.

In retaliation, the Israeli government vowed to destroy Hamas, which has been in power in the Gaza Strip since 2007. More than 28,000 people have been killed since the start of the war in the Palestinian territory, the vast majority were civilians, according to the Health Ministry of the Hamas government. According to Israel, 130 hostages are still in Gaza, 29 of whom are believed to be dead, among the nearly 250 people abducted on October 7. A week-long deal in November allowed the release of 105 hostages in exchange for 240 Palestini.