South Africa is presenting its application to the International Court of Justice to ask the principal judicial organ of the United Nations to consider whether Israel’s military action in Gaza should be considered an act of genocide against the Palestinian people. In an official press release shared on December 29, 2023, the governing body shared the details of South Africa’s filing.

The 84-page document is based on South Africa’s belief that, “acts and omissions by Israel … are genocidal in character,” and that they are being committed with the deliberate intent “to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as a part of the broader Palestinian national, racial, and ethnic group.” The filing includes a request by South Africa for the court to urgently issue a legally binding interim order that would force Israel to suspend its operations in Gaza immediately.

Israel’s current military campaign, in retaliation for the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, 2023, has killed more than 23,200 Palestinians, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza. The UN reports 70 percent of the casualties to be women and children. Casualties of children in Gaza amount to almost three times the total number of casualties of children in all conflict zones around the world last year. Additionally, 79 journalists have been killed (72 Palestinian, 4 Israeli, and 3 Lebanese) since the conflict began, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, making this the deadliest conflict for journalists since they began collecting data in 1992. The Committee to Protect Journalists has found accusations credible that Israel has targeted journalists.

The UN says 1.9 million Palestinians (85 percent of Gaza) have been displaced. More than half a million people there are starving due to Israeli blockades that have been in place since 2007 and intensified since the October 7 attack that re-ignited the current conflict. Under international humanitarian law, forced displacement is legal where evacuation of civilians is required for imperative military reasons. However, thousands of Palestinians have died in airstrikes in the areas that Israel has ordered them to evacuate to.

Civilians must be allowed to return following military operations and forced displacement, even when part of a military operation, can still be criminalized as part of other crimes such as genocide, apartheid, or collective punishment.

Israel is categorically denying the allegations, and Israeli government spokesperson, Eylon Levy, responding to the case brought by South Africa, said, “In giving political and legal cover to the October 7 massacre and the Hamas human-shields strategy, South Africa has made itself criminally complicit with Hamas’s campaign of genocide against our people. We assure South Africa’s leaders – history will judge you, and it will judge you without mercy.”

The October 7 attack was organized by Hamas, one of two Palestinian political parties and the governing body of the Gaza Strip since 2007. As a political entity, Hamas seeks the return of Palestinians displaced by the 1948 establishment of Israel as an independent Jewish state for Jewish refugees following the Second World War and the following 1948 Arab-Israeli war. The war ended in 1949 with Israel seizing land initially granted to Palestinians under a 1947 agreement that established two states for Israelis and Palestinians. This resulted in 85 percent of Palestinian Arabs fleeing to Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan in what is known as the Nakba.

The United States and EU have designated Hamas a terrorist organization since 1997 due to persistent armed resistance against Israel which has included rocket strikes and suicide bombings. The attack on October 7, during which Hamas militants breached Israeli security points by automobile and boat and launched thousands of rockets into southern and central Israel, resulted in the deaths of 1,200 (816 civilians) and the taking of 264 hostages (of which 110 have since been released). It is by far the deadliest terrorist attack since Israel declared independence.

Israel responded almost immediately with heavy bombardment of the Gaza strip that has continued with the assistance of U.S. military aid and been followed by a ground invasion. In his October 28 resignation letter, the director of the New York office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Craig Mokhiber, said of his resignation, “As a human rights lawyer with more than three decades of experience in the field, I know well that the concept of genocide has often been subject to political abuse. But the current wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people, rooted in an ethno-nationalist settler colonial ideology, in continuation of decades of their systematic persecution and purging, based entirely upon their status as Arabs, and coupled with explicit statements of intent by leaders in the Israeli government and military, leaves no room for doubt or debate."

Israel claims that the high number of civilian casualties is due to Hamas using civilian locations, such as al-Shifa Hospital, as cover for military and political leaders. While such claims are difficult to verify in the densely populated urban environment, international law mandates that civilians be protected from indiscriminate attacks. The accusation of genocide brought to the UN by South Africa asserts, “methods and means employed by the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) could not, in such a small and densely populated area, be directed at a specific military target and could not adequately distinguish between civilians and civilian objects and military objectives,” (page 22) in addition to accusing the IDF of using Palestinian civilians as human shields by forcing them at gunpoint to take part in searches related to military operations (page 19).

The case has been welcomed by several countries, including Namibia and Turkey, with many South Africans showing their support online too. And it’s been described as a rare and landmark one by various political pundits. But for South Africa, it’s personal: the country has long-held support for the Palestinian people, ever since the late Nelson Mandela met with their former leader Yasser Arafat, who had helped rally for Mandela’s release from prison and for an end to apartheid. On the eve of the court proceedings, Palestinians in Ramallah gathered around the statue of Mandela that exists there to express their gratitude to South Africa.

The case is likely to be drawn out and long, should it go ahead. Follow the proceedings here: