* The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has been asked to consider whether Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza.
* South Africa brought the case to the court.
* Israel has strongly rejected the allegation, calling it "baseless".
* The ICJ is the United Nations' top court. It is based
in the Hague, in the Netherlands, and was established after World War
Two, to settle disputes between states and give advisory opinions on
legal matters.
* Unlike the International Criminal Court (ICC), the ICJ cannot prosecute individuals for crimes of the utmost severity, such as genocide.
* But its opinions carry weight with the UN and other international institutions.
* The ICJ will deliver an opinion on the genocide allegation as the case is not a criminal trial
* South Africa alleges Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians in its declared war on Gaza.
* Since Israel launched its military campaign against Hamas, more than 23,000 people, mainly women and children, have been killed in Gaza.
* Evidence submitted by South Africa claims that "acts and omissions" by Israel "are genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group".
* This refers both to what Israel is actively doing, such as carrying out air strikes, and what it is failing to do, such as preventing harm to civilians.
* The case also highlights Israeli official statements, including comments by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as evidence of "genocidal intent".
* Under international law, genocide is defined as committing one or more acts with the intention to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. Those acts are:
killing or causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
* Israel has rejected South Africa's claims.
* Despite its unrelenting and blind bombing of residential areas of Gaza, Israel's military says it takes measures to avoid civilian casualties. Israel uses the pretext of targeting Hamas fighters to carry out blind and indiscriminate bombing of schools, hospitals, churches, mosques, ambulances, journalists, aid organizations and UN staff on the ground.
* The Israeli government has repeatedly stated its intention is to destroy Hamas, not the Palestinian people. But its actions do not support that claim. No evidence has been presented by Israel to verify that claim.
* South Africa wants the ICJ to order Israel to "immediately suspend its military operations in and against Gaza".
* ICJ rulings
are theoretically legally binding on parties to the ICJ - which include
Israel and South Africa - but in practice, are unenforceable. Many so-called "binding resolutions" taken by the UN's executive entities have never been implemented. Israel has violated or refused to implement every Security Council resolution pertaining to Palestine since the creation of Israel in 1948.
* The ICJ could rule quickly on South Africa's request for Israel to suspend its military campaign, which would, in theory, protect the Palestinians from what might ultimately be declared genocide. But a final ruling on whether Israel is committing genocide could take several years.
* South Africa has been highly critical of Israel's military operation in Gaza and, as a signatory to the UN's 1948 Genocide Convention, South Africa says it has an obligation to act.
* The governing African National Congress (ANC) also has a long history of solidarity with the Palestinian cause. It sees parallels with its own struggle against apartheid - a policy of racial segregation and discrimination enforced by the white-minority government in South Africa against the country's black majority, until the first democratic elections, in 1994.
* Just like the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the ANC was deemed a terrorist organization by the West before apartheid was dismantled and majority rule was adopted in South Africa. Why can't Israel shed its Jewish supremacist, racist Zionist inclinations and live with the indigenous native Palestinians in one state under a majority-rule democracy, just like South Africa's indigenous people did with the white Europeans settlers?
* "Our opposition to the ongoing slaughter of the people of Gaza has driven us as a country to approach the ICJ," said President Cyril Ramaphosa. "As a people who once tasted the bitter fruits of dispossession, discrimination, racism and state-sponsored violence, we are clear that we will stand on the right side of history."
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