ALBAWABA - South Africa announced prosecuting Israel over genocidal doing in Gaza under the International Court of Justice (ICJ), gaining endorsement from multiple countries across the world.
The first public hearings at the Peace Palace in the Hague are set to take place on Thursday and Friday, the 11 and 12 of January. South Africa argues that Israel violating its obligations under the Genocide Convention in its application to the ICJ.
They further argued that "acts and omissions by Israel … are genocidal in character, as they are committed with the requisite specific intent … to destroy Palestinians in Gaza".
South Africa provided the ICJ with extensive evidence of genocidal intent in various public statements by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog, and other high-ranking officials in an 84-page complaint.
Jordan
Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said on Thursday that Amman will back South Africa’s submission filed at the International Court of Justice that accuses Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, the New Arab reported.
Safadi said: "Israel’s blockade on humanitarian aid into Gaza implements the starvation policy that Israel is using against the Palestinians in clear violation of international law, which represents another war crime that Jordan has confronted with all its capabilities".
"There are 43 Arab and Islamic countries that are members of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, and one of the decisions of the joint Arab-Islamic summit was to assign the general secretariats of the Arab League and the OIC to prepare legal files, and we are now working on formulating a joint effort to follow up" Safadi added.
Malaysia
In a statement, the Malaysian Foreign Affairs Ministry endorsed South Africa’s application to ICJ against Israel’s violation of the 1948 Genocide Convention.
"The legal action against Israel before ICJ is a timely and tangible step towards legal accountability for Israel’s atrocities in Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) at large,".
Turkey
Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Öncü Keçeli said in a statement: "We welcome the application filed by the Republic of South Africa to the ICJ regarding Israel’s violation of its obligations under the 1948 Convention on Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,".
Keçeli stressed: "Israel’s massacre of over 22 thousand Palestinian civilians in Gaza must not go unpunished and perpetrators must be held accountable under international law".
Bolivia
Bolivian Ministry of Foreign Affairs became the first Latin American country to announce endorsing South Africa's efforts in prosecuting Israel before the ICJ.
Titled "in support of the application submitted by South Africa to the International Court of Justice", the statement affirmed the Latin American country's stance against Israel's brutal war on Gaza.
"The Government of the Plurinational State of Bolivia values the historic action undertaken by the Republic of South Africa, which filed a lawsuit on December 29, 2023, against the State of Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), concerning violations by of Israel to its Genocide Convention obligations to the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip" the statement reads.
It is worth mentioning that Bolivia, together with South Africa, Bangladesh, Comoros, and Djibouti, presented a request to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate the situation in Palestine.
Organization of Islamic Cooperation
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) also announced full endorsement of South Africa’s genocide case filed against Israel before the ICJ.
"The OIC has affirmed that the indiscriminate targeting by Israel, the occupying power, of the civilian population and the thousands of Palestinians, mostly women and children, killed, injured, forcibly displaced, and denied basic necessities and humanitarian assistance and the destruction of houses, health, educational and religious institutions, in their totality constitute mass genocide," the OIC said in a statement.
