The Five Most Powerful Moments in The Hague’s Israel Genocide Case

The United Nations’ top court on Thursday held the first public hearings in a case accusing Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

South Africa brought the case, charging Israel with violating the U.N.’s 1948 Genocide Convention, which was established in the wake of the Holocaust. South Africa is asking the International Court of Justice to order an immediate end to Israel’s war in Gaza, which has thus far killed more than 23,000 Palestinians and displaced nearly the entire population.

During Thursday’s hearing, a team of South African ambassadors and lawyers began presenting the case against Israel. Here are some of the most powerful things they said:

1. “The first genocide in history where its victims are broadcasting their own destruction in real time in the desperate, so far vain hope that the world might do something.”

"The first genocide in history where its victims are broadcasting their own destruction in real time in the desperate, so far vain hope that the world might do something."

Blinne Ni Ghralaigh at the ICJ in the Hague pic.twitter.com/WGU1e8M23y— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) January 11, 2024

Irish lawyer Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh, representing South Africa, delivered these powerful remarks:

The international community continues to fail the Palestinian people, despite the overt dehumanizing genocidal rhetoric by Israeli governmental and military officials matched by the Israeli’s army’s actions on the ground. Despite the horror of the genocide against the Palestinian people, being livestreamed from Gaza to our mobile phones, computers, and television screens, the first genocide in history where its victims are broadcasting their own destruction in real time in the desperate, so far vain hope that the world might do something.

2. “The terrible new acronym born out of Israel’s genocidal assault on the Palestinian population in Gaza.”

Irish lawyer Blinne Ni Ghralaigh who is supporting South Africa's legal team at the ICJ, says the number of orphans caused by ‘Israel’s genocidal assault on the Palestinian population in Gaza’ has led to the need for a new acronym: WCNSF - wounded child, no surviving family. pic.twitter.com/i63iXKMaIN— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) January 11, 2024

“On the basis of the current figures, on average, 247 Palestinians are being killed and are at risk of being killed each day, many of them literally blown to pieces,” Ní Ghrálaigh warned.

“They include 48 mothers each day, two every hour. And over 117 children each day. Leading UNICEF to call Israel’s actions a war on children. Entire multigenerational families will be obliterated and yet more children will become WCNSF—wounded child, no surviving family—the terrible new acronym born out of Israel’s genocidal assault on the Palestinian population in Gaza.”

3. “Ongoing Nakba of the Palestinian people through Israel’s colonization since 1948.”

Vusi Mandonsela, South Africa’s ambassador to the Netherlands, opened the genocide case by referencing Israel’s system of colonization, apartheid, and occupation. He also referenced the Nakba, the Arabic word for “catastrophe” which is used to describe the mass expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland upon Israel’s creation in 1948.

His remarks gave greater context to the war we are witnessing today:

South Africa has recognized the ongoing Nakba of the Palestinian people through Israel’s colonization since 1948, which has systematically and forcibly dispossessed, displaced and fragmented the Palestinian people, deliberately denying them the internationally recognized inalienable right to self determination and their internationally recognized rights of return as refugees to their towns and villages in what is now the state of Israel.

We are also particularly mindful of Israel’s institutionalized regime of discriminatory laws, policies, and practices designed and maintained to establish domination, subjecting the Palestinian people to apartheid on both sides of the Green Line.

Decades-long impunity for widespread and systematic human rights violations has emboldened Israel in its recurrence and intensification of international crimes in Palestine.

At the outset, South Africa acknowledges that the genocidal acts and omissions by the state of Israel inevitably form part of a continuum of illegal acts perpetrated against the Palestinian people since 1948.

The application places Israel’s genocidal acts and omissions within the broader context of Israel’s 25-year apartheid, 56-year occupation, and 16-year siege imposed on the Gaza Strip.

4. “This killing is nothing short of destruction of Palestinian life. It is inflicted deliberately. No one is spared. Not even newborn babies.”

Adila Hassim, another lawyer presenting South Africa’s case, described Israel’s “unparalleled and unprecedented killing.”

In schools, in hospitals, in mosques, in churches, and as they tried to find food and water for their families. They have been killed if they failed to evacuate, killed in the places to which they have fled, and even killed while they attempted to flee along Israeli declared safe routes.

The level of killing is so extensive that those whose bodies are found are buried in mass graves, often unidentified.

In the first three weeks alone, following 7 October, Israel deployed 6,000 bombs per week. At least 200 times it has deployed 2000 pound bombs in southern areas of Palestine designated as safe. These bombs have also decimated the north, including refugee camps. Two thousand pound bombs are some of the biggest and most destructive bombs available. They are dropped by lethal fighter jets that are used to strike targets on the ground by one of the world’s most resourced armies.

Israel has killed an unparalleled and unprecedented number of civilians. With the full knowledge of how many civilian lives each bomb will take.

More than 1,800 Palestinian families in Gaza have lost multiple family members and hundreds of multigenerational families have been wiped out with no remaining survivors. Mothers, fathers, children, siblings, grandparents, aunts, cousins, often all killed together.

This killing is nothing short of destruction of Palestinian life. It is inflicted deliberately. No one is spared. Not even newborn babies.

5. “Genocides are never declared in advance, but this court has the benefit of the past 13 weeks of evidence that shows incontrovertibly a pattern of conduct and related intention that justifies a plausible claim of genocidal acts.”

Hassim went on to outline the crimes Israel has committed over the last 97 days:

All of these acts individually and collectively form a calculated pattern of conduct by Israel indicating a genocidal intent. This intent is evident from Israel’s conduct in:

Targeting Palestinians living in Gaza using weaponry that causes large scale, homicidal destruction, as well as targeted sniping of civilians.

Designating safe zones for Palestinians to seek refuge and then bombing these.

Depriving Palestinians in Gaza of basic needs—food, water, health care, fuel, sanitation, and communications.

Destroying social infrastructure, homes, schools, mosques, churches, hospitals, and killing, seriously injuring, and leaving large numbers of children orphaned.

Genocides are never declared in advance but this court has the benefit of the past 13 weeks of evidence that shows incontrovertibly, a pattern of conduct and related intention that justifies a plausible claim of genocidal acts.