Israel mocking the orders of the ICJ, says South Africa
In oral hearings before the court in The Hague on Thursday afternoon, a team of South African and international human rights lawyers have been appealing to the court to order Israel to immediately stop its military onslaught in Rafah.
The International Court of Justice, which has its seat in The Hague, is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations. Picture: https://www.icj-cij.org/home
CAPE TOWN - South Africa has accused Israel of mocking the orders of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) by defying all the provisional measures it issued since January to preserve Palestinian life in Gaza.
In oral hearings before the court in The Hague on Thursday afternoon, a team of South African and international human rights lawyers have been appealing to the court to order Israel to immediately stop its military onslaught in Rafah.
ALSO READ: Israel wilfully breaching binding orders of ICJ, resolutions of UN Security Council, says SA
They say if the attacks continue, Israel will have completely decimated Palestinian society, following seven months of relentless bombardment of a strip of land only 44 kilometres in distance from north to south.
Opening South Africa's case for additional provisional measures, British barrister Vaughan Lowe said if Israel was not stopped from destroying Rafah, Gaza would have been totally destroyed.
He said that Israel can not continue to claim self-defence against a state it occupies.
"No right of self-defence can ever extend to a right to inflict massive, indiscriminate violence and starvation on an entire people."
Lawyer Max du Plessis has argued that Israel has resisted all international efforts to stop it from attacking the last place of refuge for displaced Palestinians.
"Israel's genocide of Palestinians continues through military attacks and man-made starvation, and while mocking this court's provisional measures of protecting the rights of Palestinians under the genocide conventions.
The court has further heard that Israel is throttling aid into the occupied territory and plunging the area into unprecedented catastrophe.