THE UN’s top legal body has now heard two days of powerful legal argument on the “crime of all crimes”: genocide.
It is now for the judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to decide whether Israel, in its war in Gaza, is guilty of an attempt to “destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part,” as defined by the 1948 Convention on Genocide.
There could hardly be a more weighty matter.
Both sides have played heavily on the strong emotions swirling around the conflict that erupted on 7 October last year.
Around 1,300 people – most of them civilians – were killed and about 240 others were taken hostage during the Hamas attack on southern Israel.
More than 23,350 people have been killed – mostly children and women – during Israeli retaliatory attacks on Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
The case, brought to the ICJ by South Africa, included a litany of alleged Israeli offences, from the indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians to the wholesale destruction of Gaza’s infrastructure.
“This killing is nothing short of destruction of Palestinian life,” said one of South Africa’s lawyers, Adila Hassin.
Israel’s war in Gaza could not be allowed to continue, the South African team argued.
“Entire multi-generational families will be obliterated,” Irish barrister Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh warned, “and yet more Palestinian children will become WCNSF – Wounded Child No Surviving Family – the terrible new acronym borne out of Israel’s genocidal assault.”
But on Friday morning Israel hit back, with a mixture of its own emotion and a forensic assault on the South African case.
Images of 132 missing Israelis – most of them still being held hostage in Gaza – were shown to the court.
“Is there a reason these people on your screen are unworthy of protection,” Tal Becker, a hugely experienced legal adviser at Israel’s Foreign Ministry, asked the court.
Mr Becker and his colleagues were scathing about South Africa’s submission, arguing that if anyone was guilty of genocide, it was Hamas.
“Under the guise of the allegation against Israel of genocide,” Mr Becker said, “this court is asked to call for an end to operations against the ongoing attacks of an organisation that pursues an actual genocidal agenda”.
South Africa, the Israelis said, is guilty of supporting Hamas, a group designated as a terrorist organisation by 41 countries, including the US, EU and UK.