South Africa accused Israel this Friday before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the main judicial body of the United Nations, of alleged “crimes of genocide” committed during its war against the Islamist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
“An application has been submitted to the ICJ (…) asking the court to urgently declare that Israel is in breach of its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and must immediately cease all acts and measures that breach those obligations,” the South African Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation said in a statement.
South Africa, as a signatory state of said convention against genocide, “has the obligation” to “prevent” these types of massacres from occurring, he added.
Before taking this measure, the statement recalled, South Africa “repeatedly” declared that it “condemns all violence and attacks against all civilians, including Israelis,” and “continuously called for an immediate and permanent ceasefire and the resumption of talks.” “.
Already last November, the president of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, announced that his country asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate Israel’s abuses in its war in the Gaza Strip, after deploring “collective punishment” without “precedents in history.”
The South African Executive has historically been a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause and the ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), has often linked that cause to its own fight against the segregationist apartheid regime (1948-1994).
